Stupa with Twelve Zodiac Animal Deities in Relief from Taehwasa Temple Site, Ulsan

This reliquary stupa had lain buried at the site of Taehwasa Temple until it was excavated in 1962 and temporarily moved to Busan; it was later brought to Ulsan's Hakseong Park for preservation, and as of 2011 has been relocated to Ulsan Museum. Taehwasa Temple was founded in 643, the twelfth year of Queen Seondeok of Silla, by the monk Jajang. It is thought to have been destroyed during the period of severe Japanese pirate raids at the end of Goryeo, and this stupa is the only relic that survives from the temple. Unlike typical reliquary stupas, it has a simple structure in which a bell-shaped body stone sits on a broad base stone; the base stone bears slender niche-shaped carvings incised into its front and side faces. At the upper part of the bell-shaped body stone, the entrance to a niche is cut deep into the stone to hold the relics. Below the niche entrance, figures of the twelve zodiac animal deities are carved in relief running around the stone; they have animal heads and human bodies, shown almost entirely nude. The twelve zodiac deities are the twelve animals representing the years of the zodiac cycle. In Korea they began to be carved and erected around royal tombs during the Unified Silla period for protective purposes, and their appearance on a reliquary stupa, as here, is a rare example — the stupa seems to have been regarded as a kind of tomb. This stupa is valuable as the oldest known bell-shaped reliquary stupa, and on the evidence of its style and carving technique it is thought to date from around the ninth century, the late Unified Silla period.

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Where it is

Region

Nam-gu, Ulsan

Designation

Treasure · 보물