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What happened to Kinkaku-ji in 1950?
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Kyōto
The upper levels of the pagoda at Yasaka Shrine standing out against the skyline of Kyōto, Japan.
In 1950, the historic Kinkaku-ji temple in Kyoto was destroyed by a fire started by a young, disturbed Buddhist acolyte.12
This act of arson, which resulted in the loss of the original structure, later served as the inspiration for the 1956 novel The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by the renowned author Mishima Yukio. The pavilion was subsequently rebuilt in 1955 as a near-perfect replica of the original.12