The design of the Japanese gardens is based on three basic principles, reduced scale, symbolization, and borrowed view. Gardens in reduced scale represent famous scenes and places in small and confined spaces. Mountain views and rivers are miniaturized using stones, sand and gravel.

Symbolization is used in almost every Japanese garden. Raked sand or gravel symbolizes rivers, groupings of stones and rock can represent islands. Shakkei or borrowed view is the use of existing scenery and plants to supplement the garden. The garden design is made in such a way that the existing scenery becomes part of the total design.

The above picture is taken from a garden of the Ryogen-in temple is a traditional Stand and Stone garden, maned Kare-san-sui (dry garden) or Zen-niwa. It is the most abstract form of the Japanese Garden forms and they are typically found in Zen manasteries. In these Zen temples the gardens took on a very simple form - raked sand to represent the ocean and stones to represent gods, mountains or animals.

Ryogen-in, a temple of the Daitoku-ji Buddhist complex, was constructed in 1502. There are five gardens adjoining the abbot's residence, the most famous of which is the Ryogintei, a rectangle of moss and stones viewed from the veranda of the abbot's house. The group of stones in the center of the garden is thought to represent Mt. Horai, the mythical home of Taoist immortals.

This was the dry garden (Karesansui) full of symbolism where the monks spent many hours in meditation seeking enlightenment from the stone and the sand (Ryogen-in temple garden).

Art & Culture of Japan