Hokoku zen-dera Temple

Shikoku’s oldest Hōrai-chisen style viewing garden

The garden behind the Hondō main hall is designed for Hōrai-chisen style viewing and is believed to have been created around 1430. While it is a small garden of about 830㎡, it is the oldest of its kind in the Shikoku region. The rocks are mainly blue-colored tuff all taken from the Kamo-gawa river. The arrangement includes a sanzon-seki (a set of three rocks representing a trinity of Buddhist deities) on a manmade hill in the front, a rock arrangement below it of a dry waterfall, many rocks placed along the dikes to the left and right toward the side of the pond, and a turtle island within the pond. The garden shows a garden format unique to the Muromachi period very well and is a government-designated site of scenic beauty.