GARAN

Eihe-ji was founded in 1244 by Dōgen Zenji in the Sōtō branch of mother Buddhism. This current was one of the first that introduced Zen Buddhism in Japan by exporting it from China. There are approximately seventy buildings in which a good hundred monks live. Among them, seven major main buildings form the garan where monks engage in religious life: tōsu (toilets), san-mon, yokushitsu (bath), daikuin (kitchen), butsuden, hattō (large room) and sō-dō. Except in winter, tourists are numerous and arrive in crowds from. Don't photograph the monks. One enters the main entrance and passes through the sanshō han whose ceiling is painted with flowers. Then the tōsu (toilets) and finally the san-mon, rebuilt in 1749, which now remains the oldest building of Eihei-ji. On the upper floor, the statue of the Buddha Shaka accompanied by the five disciples (rakan). There are corridors along the sō-dō, Zen meditation building and the other side of the daikuin (kitchens). Sō-dō is divided into three parts: meditation, meals and lodging. In the meditation room, it is forbidden to speak. After the kitchens, we arrive at the butsuden, in the centre of the garan, rebuilt in 1902 in the Chinese style of Song. The hattō, located at the top of the garan, rebuilt in 1843, where debates, readings and various events can accommodate more than a thousand people. The treasure, or shōbōkaku, preserves the temple bell and various memories of the founding priest Dōgen Zenji.