Ryoanji is a temple belongs to Rinzai school in Buddhism. The temple and its gardens are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so a lot of tourists are visiting there.
Originally, Ryoan-ji has established in 1450 by Katsumoto Hosokawa (細川勝元). During Ouninnoran war (応仁の乱), the temple was destroyed by fire. After the war was finished, it was rebuilt by Katsumoto’s son Masamoto.
Garden
The temple has nice hill-and pond garden and worth seeing, however zen garden is more popular and it is the world’s most famous and popular zen garden.
The zen garden is very simple. The size is 22x10m and is covered by white gravel. On the gravel, there are 15 rocks. You will may be disappointed when see it because the garden is too simple. There is no flower and no plants in the garden. In some season, background of the garden is beautiful – cherry blossom or maple color. However, most of the time, what you can see are only rocks and moss around the rocks. The gravel is raked very simply and there is nothing special. It means that this is the best place for meditation, there are full of tourists though.
One interesting thing, if you know this you want to stay longer there, is that you will not be able to see all rocks from any point except one place. At least one of the rocks are always hidden by other rocks.
Some of you maybe interested in this more than the actual garden.