Nanzen-ji

Among the monastic buildings stands the central Hatto, where the community gathers for its main ceremonies. Nanzen-ji heads a distinct branch of the Rinzai school. This complex took shape gradually: the first community lacked a preaching hall, monastic quarters, and other structures needed by a large monastery. Most of the large buildings around it were built later, while the pond garden of the small Nanzen-in has survived from the former estate; in its southeastern corner, part of the former owner's ashes is buried according to his will.

At the end of the thirteenth century, Zenrin-dono stood here—a country palace of Kameyama, a former emperor who, after taking Buddhist vows, lived as a Buddhist monk. The palace was turned into a monastery because of events that temple tradition calls an invasion of spirits.

A Nanzen-ji monk recorded the legend about half a century later, so the nighttime incidents cannot be taken as indisputable fact. According to his account, the palace doors and partitions opened and closed by themselves. Maidservants complained that at night someone pressed them down onto their beds and would not let them get up, although the sensation passed by morning.

Kameyama summoned his attendants and demanded that they rid the palace of the affliction. First, he invited Eison, a renowned teacher from Nara, who was to perform an esoteric Buddhist rite. The same monastic chronicle claims that the rite did not help and that Eison secretly returned to Nara. This detail may have been polemic: the text was compiled by a Zen monk for whom it was important to show a rival's defeat.

After Eison, Kameyama summoned Mukan Fumon, the nearly eighty-year-old abbot of Tofuku-ji. He accepted the invitation after one of the most respected preachers of his time had failed, and the reputation of his own community was now at stake. Mukan did not come alone: he brought his disciples and settled in the palace with them.

He did not conduct any special exorcism of spirits. The monks meditated, cleaned the rooms, and held the usual services—they turned part of the residence into a functioning Zen monastery before it received that status. According to the legend, the strange incidents became increasingly rare and then stopped.

Kameyama acknowledged Mukan as his teacher and, in twelve ninety-one, handed the palace over to the new Zen monastery. Mukan was appointed its first abbot, but he barely had time to benefit from imperial patronage: in December of that same year, the old monk died.

At that point, the palace still could not be called a fully fledged monastery. It had neither a preaching hall nor monastic quarters, nor the other buildings needed by a large community. Kameyama appointed Kian Soen as the second abbot, and Kian Soen needed about fifteen years to build the monastic complex. When the work was nearing completion, Kameyama died.

At first, the monastery bore the palace's name—Zenrin Zenji. Soon Kian Soen proposed another name: Nanzen-ji, “the temple of the southern Zen tradition.” It is now the head temple of a distinct branch of the Rinzai school. The central Hatto is intended for official services and monastic ceremonies.

Kameyama's palace rooms have not survived to the present day, and most of the large buildings around them appeared much later. The site of the upper part of the old residence is occupied by the small Nanzen-in. Its pond garden preserves features of an estate from the end of the thirteenth century, and in its southeastern corner, part of Kameyama's ashes is buried according to his will.