was Japan's first

Zen Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

temple, founded in Saga,

Kyōto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the c ...

by order of

Tachibana no Kachiko , also known as , was a Japanese empress, the chief consort of Emperor SagaPonsonby-Fane, Richard. (1959). ''The Imperial House of Japan,'' pp. 318-319. and the daughter of .Ponsonby-Fane, p. 319. The empress was a devout Buddhist. She founded ...

during the Jōwa era. The temple was destroyed by fire in 928, but was restored, and during the

Muromachi period The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by t ...

the temple was designated as one of Kyōto's five great Buddhist nunneries. The temple eventually fell into disrepair, and in 1339 construction of

Tenryū-ji , formally known as , is the head temple of the Tenryū-ji branch of the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism, located in Susukinobaba-chō, Ukyō Ward, Kyoto, Japan. The temple was founded by Ashikaga Takauji in 1339, primarily to venerate Gautama Budd ...

began on its grounds.

References

Kōjien is a single-volume Japanese dictionary first published by Iwanami Shoten in 1955. It is widely regarded as the most authoritative dictionary of Japanese, and newspaper editorials frequently cite its definitions. As of 2007, it had sold 11 mil ...

, 6th edition *

Encyclopedia Nipponica The is an encyclopedia of Japan and the Japanese people, first published by Shogakukan from 1984 to 1989 in 25 volumes. After 10 years of preparation, over 130,000 entries and 500,000 indexes were organized in alphabetical order in more than 23,00 ...

{{coord, 35, 1, 25.4, N, 135, 40, 2.8, E, source:jawiki_region:JP, display=title Buddhist temples in Kyoto Former buildings and structures in Japan