Iron Seated Bhaisajyaguru Buddha and Stone Pedestal of Janggoksa Temple, Cheongyang

An iron seated Buddha in Upper Daeungjeon Hall at Janggoksa Temple on Chilgapsan, sitting high on a great square stone pedestal against a wooden mandorla. The topknot protuberance is modest and the face round and composed. The body is strong and dignified but not richly modelled, and the springy fullness of earlier images has gone, which places it in the later ninth century. The right hand points down to the earth; the left, on the knee, is said to have held a medicine jar, now missing. The robe leaves the right shoulder bare and is loosely handled, its folds sparse. The square pedestal is grander than the image. It is in three stages, the lowest broad and tall, the middle and upper comparatively low and small. The ground slab is very wide, with traces of posts at its four corners, so the image once sat inside a structure of its own. The lowest stage carries an inverted lotus with large ornaments at the corners; the middle carries large framed panels on each face; the top, a lotus in full bloom. The mandorla was probably stone and seems to have been broken and replaced in wood in the Joseon period; flowers at its centre and flame round its edge copy the mandorlas fashionable at the end of Silla and the start of Goryeo. With its unusual pagoda-like pedestal, its niche structure and its composed iron style, it is regarded as a fine early-tenth-century image carrying on the manner of the late ninth.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Cheongyang, Chungnam

Designation

National Treasure · 국보