Sacred Kyoto
仁和寺

Ninna-ji

Esoteric temple, North-West Kyoto

Ukiyo-e illustration of the five-storey pagoda of Ninna-ji above white cherry blossom

The great gate of Ninna-ji stands directly on a public road, and that is the least strange thing about it. The main hall was never a temple hall at all: it is the Shishinden, the ceremonial hall of the Kyoto Imperial Palace, taken apart and re-erected here in the 1640s, and the oldest one left standing. A UNESCO World Heritage site with 30 imperial abbots behind it, and a grove of cherry trees nobody can explain.

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Close by in North-West Kyoto

The Sacred Kyoto app open on Kinkaku-ji, with Listen and Read side by side

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