Kongobu-ji Temple

Kongobu-ji Temple in Koyasan, Koya Town, serves as the head temple of Shingon Buddhism and the administrative center for the sect's roughly 3,600 affiliated temples across Japan. Visitors tour the temple's Ohiroma reception hall, painted with Edo-period screen paintings, and the Banryutei rock garden, Japan's largest karesansui dry landscape garden, where 140 granite stones arranged in white gravel are said to represent a pair of dragons emerging from clouds to protect the temple. The interior also includes the temple kitchen, with its enormous rice cauldrons once used to feed hundreds of monks, and a corridor of sliding-door paintings depicting cranes, tigers, and willow trees by Kano-school artists. A visit typically takes 45 to 60 minutes, moving through tatami-floored corridors past the gardens on both wings of the building. The Banryutei garden is best viewed from the covered veranda in soft morning light, when the raked gravel patterns are freshly maintained and few visitors are present. Free tea and rice crackers are offered to visitors in a rest area partway through the route. Weekday mornings, particularly before 10am, are notably quieter than afternoons, when tour groups arriving via the Koyasan bus loop fill the corridors and reception hall.