Rashomon Gate

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Marker at site of Rashōmon

The Rashōmon (羅生門 or 羅城門 Rajōmon or Raseimon; "the castle gate") was formerly the grandest of the two city gates of the Japanese city of Kyoto during the Heian period. Built in 789, it was 106 feet wide by 26 feet high, with a 75-foot stone wall and topped by a ridge-pole. The gate was located at the southern end of the monumental Suzaku Avenue. By the 12th century it had fallen into disrepair and became an unsavoury place, with a reputation as a hideout for thieves and other disreputable characters. People would abandon corpses and unwanted babies at the gate.

The ruined gate is the central setting — and provides the title — for Akira Kurosawa's famous 1950 film, Rashōmon, which is based on a short story by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. Akutagawa's use of the gate was deliberately symbolic, with the gate's ruined state representing the moral and physical decay of Japanese civilization and culture in the Heian period. According to one legend, it was even inhabited by the demon Ibaraki Dōji. ^[1]

The gate was originally known as the Rajōmon gate; Rajō indicates the outer precincts of the castle, so "Rajōmon" signifies the main gate to the castle grounds. At the other side of the city, at the far end of Suzaku Avenue, one would reach the northern Suzakumon Gate. The name was changed to Rashōmon in a play by the famous noh playwright Kanze Nobumitsu. ^[2]

Today, not even a foundation stone of the gate remains. A stone pillar marks the place where it once stood, now behind an indescript Kyoto shop on Kujō street, west of Route 1 within walking distance from Tō-ji temple. A wooden sign written in Japanese and English explains the history and significance of the gate. The site sits directly next to a small playground. Though a nearby busstop is named Rajōmon, unless one is exceedingly familiar with the area, the Rashōmon site is likely to be missed.