Kyoto—Kiyomizu Temple

“By far the most interesting temple I have yet seen was on to which I found my way after dinner, Kiyomidzu-dera. … The view of the city from this temple is very fine.”




“The founding of Kiyomizu temple is lost in fable, and its legends are many and confusing. All the Japanese rulers, warriors, and Shoguns have had something to do with the place and every foot of its enclosure is historic. It is the popular temple of the people, enshrining one of the thirty-three famous Kwannons of the empire, to which pilgrims flock by thousands, and where one sees the most active forms of the faith. … The Hondo, or main hall, is a most ancient building, one half resting on the slope of the hill and the rest extending in a broad platform propped up by heavy timbers and scaffolding over the face of a precipice. From this platform jealous husbands used to hurl their wives; those who survived the fall of one hundred and fifty feet to the jagged rocks below being proved innocent of wrong-doing, and those who perished guilty.”

Gilbert Watson, Three Rolling Stones in Japan, (London, 1904) pp. 180–181

Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore, Jinrikisha Days in Japan, (New York, 1891) p. ?