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Show AKGIENTJAPGARDEN Famous Temple In Flowery Kingdom King-dom 500 Years Old. Shrubbery Surrounding Edifice Planted Ages Ago In This Country Trees Are Regarded as Sacred Objects. Tokio, Japan. The Golden Temple, one of the most famous Japanese shrines, is not only 500 years old itself, it-self, but is surrounded by a garden which also has been growing for centuries. cen-turies. So carefully and artistically has the work been performed that the artifices of the gardener are not very pronounced, with the noticeable exception of the great old pine tree, which grows in a court surrounded on three sides by monastery buildings. it is trained in the shape of a junk; hull, mast and sail being perfectly reproduced. For centuries the patient pa-tient priests have bent, pruned, pried, tied and propped up the limbs and twigs of this tree. And as in Japan a tree is considered chiefly for its age, form and tint, and not for use, this is venerated as a beautiful and sacred object. In the center of the garden is a lake with pine clad shores and pine covered islets. Each tree in a Japanese Jap-anese garden has its special landscape land-scape name, according to its position and purpose in the combination. Pines are always used for a framework frame-work in working out a foliage design, says Country Life in America. It is symbolical of unflinching purpose, and its spiny leaves are supposed to be endowed with the power of driving demons away. The pavilion is a three storied, un-painted un-painted wooden building, with projecting pro-jecting roofs and galleries. There are no nails visible, its beams and posts being jointed or fastened with wooden pegs. It derives its name from the room in the third story whose walls and ceiling and floor in halcyon days were coated with gold; even the frames of the sliding screens, the railing of the balcony, and the small projecting rafters raft-ers which form the roof of the balcony, bal-cony, were, as careful examination Bhowed, covered with a lacquer of the III i v ' j zr Ssfi' - ft In Golden Temple Garden. t precious metal. On top of the roof stands a bronze phoenix, or Ho-wo bird, about three feet high, with uplifted up-lifted wings, an attitude of great significance. |
