Live camera
Eikan-do temple live camera — Sakyo, Kyoto
The gate of Zenrin-ji, known as the Eikan-do of the maples. In the second half of November the trees turn all at once and the scene changes inside an unmoving frame.
Sample October 2026What you are looking at
The road in front of the main gate. A tiled temple gate stands at the back of the frame with a roadway crossing in front of it, the verges are deep with trees, and road signs and noticeboards sit in the same view.
Eikando is properly called Zenrin-ji, said to have been founded in 853, and is the head temple of the Seizan Zenrin-ji branch of the Jodo sect. Its standing Amida Nyorai turns its head alone back over the left shoulder, and is known as the “Amida looking back”.
The ground in front of the gate is both an approach and an everyday road, so the frame carries the flow of traffic as well as of people.
Follow the road in front of the gate northwards and it reaches the southern end of the Philosopher's Path. Paired with the Ginkaku-ji camera, it lets you compare both ends of that walk on the same day. The leaves turn in the second half of November, but in this framing the trees fill the left and right edges, so the change shows first in the near branches rather than at the gate behind them.
Eikando is a nickname. It comes from Yokan, the monk who restored the temple at the end of the Heian period. The backward glance of the Amida is explained by a story about the same monk: Yokan was walking and chanting when the Amida stepped down from the altar and walked ahead of him, then turned to look back at him when he stopped.
Being a video stream, there is no wait for a refresh. Japan time. With so many trees, the foreground darkens earlier than on the city-centre cameras. The stream puts fourteen cameras on one channel, so it cannot be played inside this site.
About this camera
| Place | Sakyo, Kyoto |
| Format | Live video |
| Time zone | Asia/Tokyo (UTC+9) |
| Category | World Heritage · Nature |
| Operator | Kyoto National Highway Office, MLIT |
| Terms of use | PDL1.0 |
The operator's own page
The footage belongs to each agency. This site is an unofficial guide, and each sample frame was copied once per camera under that agency's terms of use.
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