Three-story Stone Pagoda in Seoak-dong, Gyeongju

This pagoda belongs to the mojeontap lineage of the Unified Silla period; a mojeontap imitates a jeontap, a pagoda built of fired clay bricks, by using stones cut and shaped like bricks. The foundation is unusually formed of eight large dice-shaped stone blocks stacked in two tiers. A single flat stone is set into the top of the foundation to support the first-storey body stone, a simplified arrangement compared with the three tiers of graduated steps found on the Namsan-dong pagodas. In the body of the pagoda, the body stone and roof stone of each storey are each cut from a single block. On the first-storey body stone a large square niche, a space for enshrining a Buddha image, is shallowly carved to indicate a door, with a figure of a Vajra guardian carved facing the door on either side. Each roof stone has its underside support and the graduated steps of its upper surface carved from a single block, and the eaves run parallel to one another. Judging from its unusual form of foundation, this pagoda is thought to imitate the east and west three-storey pagodas of Namsan-dong, Gyeongju, a treasure. However, whereas the Namsan-dong pagodas have three tiers of graduated steps above the foundation, this pagoda has a simplified form made from a single stone, suggesting that it was built during the declining phase of the late Unified Silla period. The roof stones are large in relation to the body stones of each storey, giving the pagoda an unbalanced, heavy appearance.

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Where it is

Region

Gyeongju, Gyeongbuk

Designation

Treasure · 보물