Shōren-in
History. It was built in the late 13th century. Shinran Shonin, the founder of the Jodo Shinshu pure land sect, was ordained a monk at Shōren-in at the age of nine. Shōren-in was formerly the temple of the imperial abbot of the Tendai headquarters on Mount Hiei; the abbot was required to be chosen from the imperial family or high court aristocracy. After the Great Kyoto Fire of 1788, it was used as a temporary imperial palace for Empress Go-Sakuramachi. It was therefore also known as the Awata Palace. Her study room was converted into  a tea room called Kobun-tei. The main hall was rebuilt in 1895. The temple complex contains a garden with massive eight-hundred-year-old camphor trees ("kusunoki"), and a pond filled with large stones and fed by a small waterfall. The modern artist Hideki Kimura created a number of "fusuma" sliding doors with blue lotus motifs to evoke the Pure Land. References. Apparent to Photo Travel.