Ginkaku-ji

Ginkaku-ji (銀閣寺, 1=Ginkaku-ji<span class=t nihongo icon style='color:), the 'Temple of the Silver Pavilion,' is a Buddhist temple in the Higashiyama District of Kyoto, Japan. Though more commonly known as Ginkakuji, the temple's official name is Jishoji (慈照寺). It was built in 1474 by the Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa, who sought to emulate the golden Kinkaku-ji commissioned by his grandfather Ashikaga Yoshimitsu. The intention was to cover it in silver, but due to the increasing severity of the Onin War, which broke out several years earlier in 1467, construction was halted, and the silver covering never placed on the pavilion. The building, originally intended to be a monument to ostentation, is now taken as an example of Japanese refinement and restraint, and considered by most Japanese more beautiful than its golden partner.

Like Kinkakuji, the Ginkakuji was originally built to serve as a place of rest and solitude for the Shogun. During his reign as Shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimasa inspired a new outpouring of traditional culture, which came to be known as Higashiyama Bunka, the Culture of the Eastern Mountain. Having retired to the villa, it is said Yoshimasa sat in the pavilion, contemplating the calm and beauty of the gardens as the Onin War worsened and Kyoto was burned to the ground. In 1485, Yoshimasa became a Zen Buddhist monk, and after his death the villa became a Buddhist temple, renamed Joshoji.

Of all the temple buildings once standing, only the Silver Pavilion remains.

In addition to that building, the temple features wooded grounds covered with a variety of mosses, and a Japanese garden, supposedly designed by the great landscape artist Soami. The rock and sand garden of Ginkaku-ji is particularly famous, and a pile of sand, supposedly left by the builders when their work was interrupted, has now come to be a part of the garden; it is said to symbolize Mount Fuji.