- Kennin-ji
nihongo|Kennin-ji|建仁寺, also called Kennen-ji, is a historic
Zen Buddhisttemple at 584 Komatsu-cho, Higashiyama-ku, nearGion in Kyoto,Japan . Founded in 1202, it is the first Zen temple in Japan.The monk
Eisai , credited with introducing Zen to Japan, served as Kennin-ji's founding abbot and is buried on the temple grounds. For its first years the temple combinedZen ,Tendai , andShingon practices, but it became a purely Zen institution under the eleventh abbot, nihongo|Lanxi Daolong |蘭渓道隆 (1213-1278). The Zen masterDōgen , later founder of the JapaneseSoto sect, trained at Kennin-ji. It is one of theRinzai sect's headquarter temples.When first built, the temple contained seven principal buildings. It has suffered from fires through the centuries, and was rebuilt in the mid-thirteenth century by Zen master nihongo|
Enni |円爾 (1202-1280), and again in the sixteenth century with donations of buildings from nearby temples nihongo|Ankoku-ji |安国寺 andTōfuku-ji .Today Kennin-ji's buildings include the Abbot’s Quarters (Hōjō), given by Ankoku-ji in 1599; the Dharma Hall (Hatto), built in 1765; a tea house built in 1587 to designs by tea master
Sen no Rikyū forToyotomi Hideyoshi ; and the Imperial Messenger Gate (Chokushimon), said to date from the Kamakura era (1185–1333), and still showing marks from arrows. It also has fourteen subtemples on the Kennin-ji precincts and about seventy associated temples throughout Japan.Kennin-ji contains notable paintings by
Tawaraya Sōtatsu ,Tamura Soryu Fact|date=September 2007 and nihongo|Hashimoto Kansetsu |橋本関雪 (1883-1945), as well as a remarkable ceiling painting of two dragons by nihongo|Koizumi Junsaku |小泉淳作 (1924-), created in 2002 for the temple's 800th anniversary.External links
* [http://www.kenninji.jp Kennin-ji official page (Japanese language)]
* [http://zen.rinnou.net/head_temples/12kennin.html Kenninji English-language information]References
* "Kennin-ji: The Oldest Zen Temple in Kyoto", undated brochure from temple
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
