Kenchoji

Kencho-ji is a Rinzai Zen temple in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, which ranks first among Kamakura's so-known as Five Great Zen Temples the Kamakura Gozan and is the oldest Zen training monastery in Japan. These temples were on the top of the Five Mountain System, a network of Zen temples started out by the Hojo Regents. Still very large, it firstly had a complete shichido garan and 49 subtemples. The temple became constructed at the orders of Emperor Go-Fukakusa and completed in 1253, 5th year of the Kencho generation, from which it takes its call.

It became founded by using Rankei Doryu, a Chinese Zen master who moved to Japan in 1246, spending some years in Kyushu and Kyoto before coming to Kamakura. Kencho-ji firstly consisted of a shichida garan with 49 subtemples, however maximum of these had been misplaced in fires within the 14th and 15th centuries. It nevertheless is a conventional example of a Zen garan with its buildings aligned north to south. The complex presently includes ten subtemples. Its maximum critical structures encompass so as from the primary gate.