Three-story Stone Pagoda of Geumgoksa Temple, Gangjin

This pagoda stands at Geumgoksa Temple. It has a three-storey body set on a single-tier base, though several parts of both the base and the body have cracked or fallen away. The base has thick pillars set at its four corners, with slab stones fitted between them, except on one side, where there is no slab and the gap is instead filled with small stones. This method of erecting plain corner pillars, rather than carving them in relief, is also found on the Five-storey Stone Pagoda at Jeongnimsa Temple Site in Buyeo (National Treasure). On each side of the first-storey body stone a niche (gamsil) has been carved; in wooden pagodas such a niche was a space one could enter to house a Buddha image, but in stone pagodas like this it survives only as a purely formal carving. The thick roof stones have a steep pitch, and their undersides carry six tiers of eave supports, giving the pagoda a solemn, weighty air. As a Goryeo-period pagoda that shows the influence of Baekje style, it displays the pagoda's excellence in the way its scale is gradually reduced from the base up to the third storey, giving it stable proportions, and in the well-organised composition of each part.

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Where it is

Region

Gangjin, Jeonnam & Gwangju

Designation

Treasure · 보물