Tenryū-ji ("Temple of the Heavenly Dragon") is the head temple of one of the major schools of Rinzai Zen and the most important monastery in Arashiyama. It was founded in 1339 by the shogun Ashikaga Takauji to pray for the soul of the recently overthrown emperor Go-Daigo, and its founding abbot Musō Soseki — also one of the foremost garden designers of his era — laid out the Sōgen Pond garden that survives almost unchanged behind the main hall.
The garden is one of the earliest in Japan to use shakkei, the technique of "borrowing" distant scenery — in this case the wooded ridges of Arashiyama and Kameyama — into the composition. The temple buildings themselves are mostly nineteenth-century reconstructions after a series of fires, but the painted dragon on the ceiling of the Hattō is worth the extra ticket. A short path through the back of the grounds leads directly into the Sagano bamboo grove.