京の水ものがたり

The capital of the Heian period, where it is said that Emperor Shirakawa once lamented, ‘The waters of the Kamo River, the dice of the board game sugoroku, and the mountain monks—these are the things that do not sit well with my heart’, is built upon a vast alluvial fan. It is said that the Kyoto Basin contains a volume of water equivalent to that of Lake Biwa. This abundance of water and the flow of its rivers have nurtured the culture of Kyoto. In this programme, we will introduce the culture of Kyoto through the lens of ‘water’.