Three-story Stone Pagoda in Beomhak-ri, Sancheong

This pagoda lay collapsed on an old temple site at Sancheong, said to have been Beomhosa. Around 1941 a Japanese antiques dealer in Daegu bought it and set it up at a factory; in 1947 it was moved to Gyeongbokgung, and it is now held at the Jinju National Museum. The form is the usual one, three storeys on a two-tier base. The bottom slab and the lower part of the base were reinforced with cement when it was re-erected, so their original structure is not known. Columns are carved at the corners and across the middle of each face of the base — two to a face on the lower tier, one on the upper. On the upper tier, in each of the panels the columns divide, the eight classes of divine beings are carved in relief. On the body, the first storey carries one bodhisattva to a face, elegantly done. The roof stones have four steps of support beneath and their slopes are flat and thin, and the sharp lift at the ends of the eaves gives the whole thing a lightness. Because the base and the first storey are so densely carved with divinities and bodhisattvas it is sometimes called the decorated pagoda. The ornament costs it some of the gravity and plainness such pagodas usually have, but it remains a fine example of the late Unified Silla form.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Jinju, Gyeongnam

Designation

National Treasure · 국보