Daegwangmyeongjeon Hall of Tongdosa Temple, Yangsan

Daegwangmyeongjeon Hall is the central Buddha hall of the Jungnojeon, the middle precinct of Tongdosa Temple, standing to the northwest of Daeungjeon Hall. Temple tradition holds that the Great Master Chukhwan renovated Daegwangmyeongjeon Hall in 1725, the first year of King Yeongjo's reign. A plaque made in 1759, recording the completion of work at Daegwangmyeongjeon Hall, states that on the night of the twenty-first day of the tenth month of 1756, around midnight, a fire broke out that reduced four images in the main hall, four monks' quarters, and ten bays of storehouses to ashes. It further records that reconstruction began on the seventh of the first month of 1758, that the three halls were rebuilt by the twenty-sixth of the ninth month with both interior and exterior decoration completed, and that, beginning in early April 1759 and continuing until 26 June, the decorative colour painting of Daegwangmyeongjeon Hall was finished, together with the gilding of the Vairocana Buddha image and the Buddha images of Yeongsanjeon Hall and the painting behind the altar, all completed at the same time. This shows that Daegwangmyeongjeon Hall, having burned down in 1756, was rebuilt in 1758, a date confirmed by an inscription reading "Qianlong 23" (1758) on a round eave-end tile. Daegwangmyeongjeon Hall is a five-bay by three-bay multi-bracket building with a hip-and-gable roof. Its platform is built of roughly squared fieldstone laid in even courses, topped with a coping of long, dressed stones, and a wide stone stairway is set in front of the central bay. Roughly dressed foundation stones are placed on the platform, supporting round columns with slight entasis that carry the upper frame. The front doors are latticed with an elaborate flower pattern: the central bay has a three-panel door, and the others have two-panel doors. The side bays at the eaves have lattice or diagonal-lattice windows, and the three rear bays have vertical-lattice windows. The bracket sets on the front and sides are finished with upward-curving bracket arms, while those at the rear are finished simply with straight, angular arms. A finely carved dragon's head also projects from the top of the columns in the central front bay, and a dragon's tail projects on the interior of the hall, showing well the decorative taste and refined carving technique of the period. Most of the exterior decorative painting has faded and only traces remain, but the interior retains both its pattern and colour clearly. Daegwangmyeongjeon Hall is a Buddha hall of outstanding joinery and carving, and its floor plan, bracket style and windows and doors all clearly show the architectural characteristics of mid-eighteenth-century multi-bracket Buddha halls; it is also valuable as material for studying the distinctive decorative painting of late-Joseon Buddha halls, giving it sufficient historical and academic value to merit designation as a state-designated Treasure.

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Where it is

Region

Yangsan, Gyeongnam

Designation

Treasure · 보물