Wangheungsa Temple Site, Buyeo

Wangheungsa Temple Site in Buyeo is an important Baekje-period temple site, recorded in sources such as the Samguk sagi and Samguk yusa, which mention its founding in the second year of King Beop (600) and its completion in the thirty-fifth year of King Mu (634); in 1934 a roof-tile fragment inscribed "Wangheung" was recovered from the site. The National Buyeo Research Institute of Cultural Heritage has carried out annual excavations since 2000. These excavations identified the building sites at the centre of the temple precinct, including a wooden pagoda site, a main hall site, the eastern and western corridors and eastern and western building sites, a lecture hall site and an auxiliary building site to the west, as well as the east-west stone embankments retaining the precinct and the north-south stone embankment forming its entrance facility; a Baekje-to-Goryeo period roof-tile kiln site was also found on the eastern edge of the precinct. During the eighth excavation in 2007, a reliquary was recovered from within a relic chamber, consisting of a triple structure of a gold reliquary bottle, a silver reliquary jar and a bronze reliquary box enshrined one inside the other. On the outer body of the bronze reliquary box, two incised lines ran around the top and bottom edges, and between them was a 29-character inscription arranged in six lines of five characters, which reads: "On the fifteenth day of the second month of the Jeongyu year (577), King Chang of Baekje built a pagoda (or temple) for his deceased prince and originally interred two relics of the Buddha, sarira; by divine transformation they became three." This account, concerning the founding of Wangheungsa Temple, differs from the documentary records, and has thereby clarified the temple's true founding date and, further, provided an opportunity to re-examine the history of Baekje as recorded in written sources.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Buyeo, Chungnam

Designation

Historic Site · 사적