Keywords
Architecture
Gardens
A somewhat ambiguous term meaning landscape. Because the curving root of a tree, moku 木, was thought to resemble the silhouette of a mountain, dried roots were used to create miniature mountains in the Nara period. Combining this idea of the tree mountain, mokusan 木山, with the artificial mountain *kasan 仮山, mokukasan came to mean a garden which recreates a mountain landscape.