Zen and the art of garden maintenance

The terraces ahead were packed with enthusiastic Japanese spectators all leaning forward in eager anticipation.

I hurried through Ryoan-ji Temple, in the ancient Japanese capital of Kyoto, to see what was going on.

The serried ranks of viewers were gazing at a large oblong of white gravel raked into thoughtful patterns, with 15 rocks carefully placed on the surface and surrounded by moss, and bordered by an ancient brick wall.

This was, I discovered, Japan's most famous dry garden - a style without hills, trees or ponds - which has attracted crowds for centuries. No one is sure who built it, and no one can agree on when it was created, but all accept its simple austerity is the finest example of the Zen meditation garden.

Unfortunately I lacked the concentration required to meditate in an atmosphere almost like that of a sporting event. But there's no doubt the garden does have a strange appeal and it is regarded as one of the great masterpieces of Japanese culture.

It is said that the longer you look at it the more you see and certainly some of the crowd on the terraces did appear to be meditating on its stark beauty - although others were like excited children at a fun fair.

Ryoan-ji - or the Temple of the Peaceful Dragon - is among the most fascinating of the 1600 Buddhist temples and 400 Shinto shrines crammed amid the offices, department stores and apartment blocks of a modern city of 1.5 million. It is also one of 17 Kyoto sites selected by Unesco for world heritage status.

As well as the stone garden it also has a famous pond with a small island on which there is a statue of Sarasvati the goddess of the arts, a tranquil altar room with a (peaceful) dragon on the ceiling, a unique stone wash basin on which is inscribed the Zen saying "I learn only to be contented", and beautiful grounds full of graceful trees, trickling streams and ornate shrines.

And, as a slightly bizarre extra attraction, there are a couple of what I suppose you could call temple arcade games: mini-shrines with a bowl in the centre into which visitors try to throw money.

As a visit to Ryoan-ji illustrates, not only are there a lot of temples, shrines, palaces, gardens and beauty spots in Kyoto, but they have a great many different things to offer.

Kiyomizu-dera temple, for instance, is particularly notable - for better or worse - for the array of stalls and shops selling sweets, pottery and trinkets that line the long, winding hill climb to the entrance.

The day I visited it was raining and the beautiful temple complex, set on a forest-clad hillside, was made even more colourful by the hordes of Japanese climbing the stairs in with their colourful umbrellas.

Nanzen-ji's special feature, to my eyes, is the amazing golden door screen paintings of tigers, which perhaps gave the name to the adjoining Leaping Tiger Garden, another classic of Zen minimalist design.

It also has a particularly beautiful teahouse where for Y400 (about $5) you can enjoy a bowl of tea.

Rokuon-ji is the home of Kyoto's famous Golden Pavilion, Kinkaku, a Zen temple coated with gold leaf and sitting on the edge of pond, where its image is reflected in the still waters.

To my mind it is a bit Disneyish but the surrounding grounds, created by a retired shogun some 600 years ago, were beautiful when I visited and must be glorious at autumn.

Tenryu-ji, the temple of the heavenly dragon, was built after a priest dreamed of a dragon rising from the nearby river and its hall features a scary painting of a cloud dragon which appears to be staring at you no matter where you stand.

The gardens are nice but it's even more interesting to stroll through the adjoining bamboo forest.

Kitano Tenman-Gu is a Shinto shrine built more than a thousand years ago in honour of the scholar-statesman Sugawara Michizane. Ironically, it was built not by his friends but by his enemies, because after his death Kyoto was hit by several lighting storms and they feared the great man had come back as Raijin the god of lightning.

It is also a place where young people come to buy charms to assist them in their exams. My guide noted a little grumpily that she made a special trip to Kyoto to buy one and it didn't help her pass ... but she'd also got the cheapest one available so what else would you expect?

Another marvellous feature of Kyoto is the array of stalls and shops selling sweetmeats for which the city is famous and of great restaurants cooking traditional Japanese food.

My favourite was the Okutan restaurant which for hundreds of years has specialised in vegetarian temple food. Not only is the garden setting and the traditional service a joy but the food - even the tofu which I normally detest - is delicious.

After that you could try a stroll across the Togetsu-kyo bridge, the moon crossing, over the wide Oi River near the Hori-ji temple.

Between July and September you can watch fishermen using cormorants to catch fish. Watching the water rippling over the stones, is in its way, very similar to gazing at the stone garden at Ryoan-ji ... only quieter.

Checklist

Kyoto

There are so many historic sites in Kyoto it's hard to know where to start. Lonely Planet's Kyoto City Guide is a good introduction. Kyoto Prefectural Government Tourism and Commerce Office's website www.pref.kyoto.jp/visitkyoto/en/ (see link below) and the Kyoto City Tourist Association website www.kyotoguide.com (see link below)are both good sources of information.


* Jim Eagles travelled to Japan as guest of Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.