Tenryu-ji Sogenchi Garden

What makes it special

The Zen master Muso Soseki laid out Sogenchi as a pond garden, and he treated the slopes of Arashiyama and Kameyama behind it as part of the design. The technique is called shakkei, or borrowed scenery. Look past the water and the wooded hills read as the back of the garden.

Ryumonbaku, the main group of stones, represents the Dragon Gate Falls on the Yellow River in China. Find the carp stone set to the side of the falls: it shows a fish in the middle of turning into a dragon.

A sandbank shaped in the Yamato-e manner of classical Japanese painting runs along the water, with the hills rising at the back of the pond. In autumn the red and gold maples show in the surface, so walk round the pond and catch the reflection from more than one side.

Visiting

Tenryu-ji sells the garden on its own ticket, so confirm at the counter what the halls ticket adds. Buy it too if you can. Shoes come off at the entrance, and then you sit in the middle of the Hojo veranda, facing straight across the pond.

Then go back outside and walk the path that circles the pond, stopping to look at the falls and the hills from each side. At the end of the loop, follow the path through the garden to the North Gate. Leaving Tenryu-ji that way puts you straight into the bamboo grove, so the garden and the grove make one walk.

Tips

Spend time on the veranda before you start the loop, because each side of the pond shows a different part of the view. Then walk the whole circuit rather than judging the garden from one spot.

For a quiet bamboo grove, walk it before eight in the morning and come back for the garden once the temple opens. On a weekend or public holiday you can also see the Cloud Dragon painting in the Dharma Hall, which takes its own separate ticket.