Kinkaku-ji (金閣寺, literally Temple of the Golden Pavilion), or formally Rokuon-ji (鹿苑寺, Deer Garden Temple) is a Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan.
The original Kinkaku-ji was built in 1397 to serve as a retirement villa for Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, as part of his estate then known as Kitayama. It was his son, shogun Ashikaga Yoshimochi, who converted the building into a Zen temple of the Rinzai school.
The temple was burned down twice during...
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Kinkaku-ji (金閣寺, literally Temple of the Golden Pavilion), or formally Rokuon-ji (鹿苑寺, Deer Garden Temple) is a Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan.
The original Kinkaku-ji was built in 1397 to serve as a retirement villa for Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, as part of his estate then known as Kitayama. It was his son, shogun Ashikaga Yoshimochi, who converted the building into a Zen temple of the Rinzai school.
The temple was burned down twice during the Ōnin War.
On July 2, 1950, at 2:30 am, the pavilion was burned down by a monk named Hayashi Yoken, who then attempted suicide on the Daimon-ji hill behind the building. He survived, and was subsequently taken into custody. During the investigation after the monk's arrest, his mother was called in to talk with the police; on her way home, she committed suicide by jumping from her train into a river valley. The monk was sentenced to seven years in prison, but was released because of mental illness on September 29th, 1955; he died of other...
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