Yeongsanjeon Hall of Tongdosa Temple, Yangsan

Yeongsanjeon Hall stands facing south as the central building of the Ha-rojeon, the lower precinct of Tongdosa Temple, with Geungnakjeon Hall and Yaksajeon Hall standing to its front, left and right. The date of its founding is uncertain, but a record preserved at the Tongdosa Temple Museum, the "Record of the Reconstruction and Repainting of Yeongsanjeon Hall and Cheonwangmun Gate" (1716), states that one night in the spring of 1713, the thirty-ninth year of King Sukjong, a fire destroyed Yeongsanjeon Hall and Cheonwangmun Gate, and that in 1714 the four great monks Imgan Cheongin, Songgok Jeongan, Pungam Rangil and Seonam Chiwon raised funds for its reconstruction, in which thirty-three carpenters and fifteen painter-monks, including Cheono, Choehun, Jeokjo and Jisun, took part. An inscription on a round eave-end tile reading "Kangxi 53, a gap year" (1714) corroborates the record. Yeongsanjeon Hall is a three-bay by three-bay multi-bracket building with a gable roof. The platform on the front and east side is finished with a base stone topped by face stones and a coping stone, while the platform on the west side and rear has been repaired in recent years and so differs in appearance; steps are set at the centre of the front platform and at the front of both side platforms. Windows and doors are fitted only on the front and rear, with the two side walls left closed and windowless. The front has four-panel latticed doors in each bay, and the rear has two-panel latticed doors. The bracket sets differ in number between the front and rear: the front has three intercolumnar bracket sets per bay, while the rear has two, a distinctive arrangement, and placing three such sets in each front bay is a very rare feature, apparently intended to emphasise the façade and express the grandeur of the hall. The upward-curving bracket arms are carved with lotus buds and lotus flowers for added ornament, and the ox-tongue brackets show a transitional form, softer than the strong, upright ox-tongue brackets of the early Joseon period, illustrating well the trend in multi-bracket architecture at the time of the hall's early eighteenth-century reconstruction. The murals of Yeongsanjeon Hall are particularly notable. Among the interior murals is a pictorial representation of Dabotap Pagoda, prized as the only surviving illustrated sutra painting in Korea depicting the "Chapter on the Appearance of the Jewelled Stupa" of the Lotus Sutra, and valued as a precious work of outstanding artistic merit. The main beam is also very elaborately decorated with paintings of a yellow dragon and a blue dragon, together with murals of the Willow Avalokitesvara, arhats and landscapes; amid this rich ornamentation are enshrined an image of Sakyamuni Buddha and a painting of the Buddha's assembly on Vulture Peak, around which hangs a set of paintings depicting the Buddha's life in eight scenes. Yeongsanjeon Hall is distinctive in the arrangement of its altar to suit the building's function, in the composition of its walls to accommodate the murals, and in the layout of its ceiling, while its upper timber frame and bracket style also clearly reflect the characteristics of early eighteenth-century Buddha halls, giving it valuable academic and historical significance for the study of the history of Buddhist architecture and painting, and fully justifying its designation as a state-designated Treasure.

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Where it is

Region

Yangsan, Gyeongnam

Designation

Treasure · 보물