Ryoanji Temple

Ryoanji is a Zen temple founded in 1450 by Hosokawa Katsumoto on a villa he took over from the Tokudaiji family. South of the abbot's quarters lies its dry landscape garden — a historic site and special place of scenic beauty, and the most famous rock garden in the world. Earthen walls enclose three sides of a rectangle of white gravel, 25 metres east to west and a little over 10 north to south, in which fifteen stones are set in groups. Who made it is unknown and its meaning has been argued over endlessly, but it is consistently described as the furthest reach of abstract composition.