This Kyoto travel guide presents the best tourists sites in Japan's spiritual and historical capital. With this guide the visitor needs no further assistance to learn all that a place has to offer. It is factual, concise, and complete. This Japan travel book is generously illustrated with photographs, maps, route plans, and building plans, as well as a selection of reproductions from old prints and picture scrolls. The sights were specifically chosen to give foreign visitors a broad understanding of Kyoto's political, religious, and cultural history. Among them are the ancient Phoenix Hall of the Byodo-in, the famous rock garden at Ryoan-ji, the mountain temples of Enryaku-ji, the lavishly decorated Nijo Castle of the Tokugawas, the Silver Pavilion and its remarkable garden, and the "all-time temple," Kiyomizu. Three appendices--a chart of Japanese art periods, a glossary and a list of useful Japanese phrases--further enhance its value.

Kamakura rose as the first samurai capital in the 12th century. Shogun Yoritomo chose for the seat of his military government a natural fortress far from the intrigues of the court in Kyoto. He summoned from the capital carpenters to build grand temples and sculptors to carve images for their halls. His successors, the Hj, built the great Zen monasteries Kench-ji and Engaku-ji. Religious figures including Nichiren, Ippen, and Ninsh established temples of their respective Buddhist sects in the new city. Kamakura: A Contemplative Guide introduces the dramatic and often violent lives of these figures and walks you through shrine and temple precincts, illuminating the features of their halls, gardens, and statuary. It takes you over the passes cut sheer through rock to give entrance to the city. It shows Kamakura through the eyes of the writers and artists drawn to the seaside city by its laid-back pace, rich history, and abundant greenery. Rare photographs complement the text. Lucid maps pinpoint places of interest. Finally, Kamakura: A Contemplative Guide explains how the establishment of the first samurai capital, from whence the ethic and spirit of the Eastern warrior spread nationwide, was of significance in the formation of Japan.

Children turned emperor, emperors turned priest, and priests turned poet are just a few of the colorful characters described in Kyoto: A Cultural Guide. The fascinating facts, larger-than-life characters and grand events described within offer abundant proof that, more than just a treasure house of shrines and temples, Kyoto is indeed one of the most enticing cities in the world. For example, Benkei, an eight-foot-tall monk with a wildly combative nature, was defeated on the Gojo Bridge by a voting warrior who had received his training in swordsmanship from a tengu goblin. Benkei's defeat is memorialized at Kyoto's Kiyomizu-dera temple in the form of an oversize iron staff and gela created by a blind blacksmith. Oishi entered into a life of debauchery at the lchiriki tea house in Gion with the sole intention of avenging the disgrace of his former master. After gathering together 46 other samurai, he exacted his revenge. Thus the tale of The Forty Seven Ronin was born. A guidebook to 14 walking tours, Kyoto: A Cultural Guide is also a kaleidoscopic reference and resource book certain to please long-term residents and first-time travelers.

Kyoto, the ancient former capital of Japan, breathes history and mystery. Its temples, gardens and palaces are testimony to many centuries of aristocratic and religious grandeur. Under the veneer of modernity, the city remains filled with countless reminders of a proud past. John Dougill explores this most venerable of Japanese cities, revealing the spirit of place and the individuals that have shaped its often dramatic history. Courtiers and courtesans, poets and priests, samurai and geisha people the pages of his account. Covering twelve centuries in all, the book not only provides a historical overview but brings to life the cultural magnificence of the city of "Purple Hills and Crystal Streams". City of Power: The seat of aristocrats and warriors; military might and spiritual authority; unification and the transition to modernity. City of Ritual: Buddhist sects and Shinto festivals; tea ceremony; the role of the geisha; the influence of Zen. City of Arts: Poetry and fiction; architecture and garden design; Heian verse and Noh theatre; art and handicrafts; the Japanese Hollywood.

Osaka and Kyoto are often overshadowed in the Western imagination by Tokyo's teeming sea of civilization. Nevertheless, Osaka and Kyoto are the setting for most of Japan's important historical events. From the 5th century B.C.E. to the 17th century, the Osaka-Kyoto region (known as the Kansai today) was the center of Japan politically, culturally, and economically. Today, the region continues to play a leading role in the traditional arts as well as serving as the second most important economic area in the country. This volume begins to address a painful lack of information about Osaka and Kyoto in English. Its dictionary-style entries place concise and important information at researchers' and scholars' fingertips. The introductions and chronologies contribute to the usefulness of this ready-reference, and the bibliography points students of Osaka and Kyoto to starting points for further research.

The Temples of Kyoto takes you on a journey through these environs and presents twenty-one of these marvelous structures that are unique creations which, while quintessentially Japanese, somehow speak a universal language readily appreciated by people the world over. Donald Richie, called by Time magazine, "the dean of art critics in Japan," turns his attention to these twenty-one temples with scholarship and an eye for the dramatic. Drawing off such classic sources as The Tale of Genji and Essays in Idleness, he takes the reader on a tour through the ages, first with a comprehensive history of Japanese Buddhism, and then by highlighting key events in the development of these "celestial-seeming cities." Brilliant photographs of the temples, taken by the award-winning photographer Alexandre Georges, complement the text and provide a visual overview of the subject matter. His keen eye captures on film the elements that make each temple noteworthy, including their interiors, and objets d'art, in a fresh and thought provoking manner. The result is this book: a testament and meditation on the power and elegance of these world-renowned structures that are both places of worship and examples of the finest art Japan has ever produced.

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