Stele of Buddhist Monk Nanghye at Seongjusa Temple Site, Boryeong

The stele of the monk Muyeom, known as Master Nanghye, on the site of Seongjusa. He was an eighth-generation descendant of King Muyeol, born in 801, ordained at thirteen, and in 821 went to Tang China to study, where he came to enlightenment. He returned in 845 and became abbot of Ohapsa, then in Ungcheon — present-day Boryeong. As he spread Seon teaching there and the monastery grew, the king gave it the name Seongjusa. He died there in 888 at eighty-nine, and the king gave him the posthumous name Nanghye and named his stupa Baegwolbogwang. The stele stands at the north-west of the site: a turtle base, the stone body, and a capstone above. The base had broken badly and lay buried until it was taken apart and repaired in 1974. The turtle, its face partly lost, has a round horn on its head, eyes slit back with curling brows, and a mouth set as though about to breathe fire. A clear double hexagon pattern covers the shell, with thick cloud carved in the middle, rendered from life. Above the cloud a square socket is raised to hold the stone body, its faces decorated. The body is long, inscribed on the front face only, its upper corners rounded off. The capstone is ringed with lotus underneath, and above it dragons and cloud are carved wound together, full of movement; at the front a dragon's head juts out, facing the same way as the turtle's below. The text records Nanghye's life in detail — including the passage in which his family, of the highest bone rank, fell to the sixth head rank in his father's generation, which makes the stele an important source on Silla's rank system. Choe Chi-won composed it and his cousin Choe In-gon wrote it out. No date of erection is given, but a record says his reliquary stupa was raised in 890, two years after his death, and the stele is thought to have gone up with it. It is the grandest of all the stupa steles of Unified Silla, and its carving shows that period at its height.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Boryeong, Chungnam

Designation

National Treasure · 국보