Arashiyama’s Hidden Alley Gem: Enryaku-an Temple’s Autumn-Limited Maple Viewing

By MOOK Scenic Spots Travel & Lifestyle Network Editorial Team

Arashiyama boasts many maple-viewing spots, such as Nison-in and Jōjō-ji, which are highly popular. But if you prefer to avoid the crowds, the secluded Enryaku-an nestled in a quiet path might be your best choice. "Aspire for the Pure Land, renounce the defiled world" — leave behind the impure mortal realm and joyfully seek the Pure Land. Tucked at the foot of Mount Kurama, Enryaku-an is precisely such a place.

On the way from Seiryo-ji to Kannon-ji, there’s an unassuming small stone monument. Walk into the bamboo grove path, and you’ll find a tiny mountain gate — that’s Enryaku-an. Though small, Enryaku-an reveals wonder in its compactness. Its maple leaves are famously brilliant red, covering every corner of sight in a sea of crimson. Especially when autumn sunlight filters through the red leaves, it bathes the temple garden in a poetic hue of red.

The original site of Enryaku-an was the former villa of Fujiwara no Teika, the renowned compiler of Japan’s classic imperial poetry anthology "Hyakunin Isshu." It was here that Fujiwara no Teika edited his famous collection of waka poems. Later, the site fell into disuse until it was revived in the mid-Edo period and renamed “Enryaku-an” by Emperor Reigen. In Meiji 43 (1910), the president of Shirakiya, Ōmura Hikotarō, built a Buddhist hall here and invited So shin-ni, daughter of the prominent shogunate official Yamagata Taira, to serve as the abbess. Since then, Enryaku-an has been a nunnery of the Tendai sect’s Tenryū-ji school.