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context: gardens > paradise gardens
General Description
There are historical references to gardens with ponds as early as 74AD, but the earliest ones we know much about are in the Heian Period (794-1185AD). Their design is related to Buddhist notions of Amida's paradise, designed as some kind of terrestrial shadow of this ideal, and they follow to at least some degree the Japanese reinterpretation of Chinese Feng Shui.
They centre on large ponds, even lakes, fed by winding streams and containing symbolic islands. They were designed to be appreciated from boats on the water, or sitting around its edge.
They may in one way have been less lovely than the pictures in this section would suggest: Heian houses, even palaces, had no toilets of any kind, so it is more than likely that the gardens were used instead.