Stone Standing Buddhas in Godo-ri, Iksan

These are two stone statues standing face to face about 200 m apart, each carved from a trapezoidal stone pillar with a face, hands and pedestal represented on it. According to a legend attached to the statues, they are figures of a man and a woman who meet once, in the twelfth lunar month, to share the feelings pent up over the year, then part and return to their places at the sound of the cock crowing at dawn. On the head is a tall square crown, topped by a further square hat. The square face has narrow eyes, a short nose and a small mouth barely indicated, giving the expression of an indigenous guardian deity. The neck is rendered extremely short, so that the shoulders and face are almost joined. The body is a trapezoidal stone pillar without any modelling, the arms are not represented at all, and the hands are barely indicated at the stomach. The robe, resembling a long overcoat, is rendered only with a few lines and no particular pattern. The pedestal and the statue are carved from the same stone, the front being cut back slightly to suggest the shape of a pedestal. The trapezoidal, pillar-like body and the unrealistic carving technique resemble the stone guardian figures set up at tombs. By the Goryeo period many huge stone statues were made with the human form reduced to its barest essentials, and this statue appears to be one of that kind.

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Where it is

Region

Iksan, Jeonbuk

Designation

Treasure · 보물