Bunhwangsa Temple Site, Gyeongju

The Bunhwangsa Temple Site, Gyeongju is where Bunhwangsa Temple, one of Silla's leading temples, once stood. According to the Samguk yusa and the Samguk sagi, Bunhwangsa Temple was founded in the third year of Queen Seondeok's reign (634), and it is a temple of long standing where the Silla monks Jajang and Wonhyo resided while spreading the Buddhist teachings. Excavations carried out from 1990 to 2014 established the boundaries of the current precinct, both inside and out. They showed that at the time of its founding the temple was built as Silla's first example of an iltap-samgeumdangsik layout, in which the main halls are arranged in a "pum" (品)-shaped pattern to the east, west, and north of a central pagoda. The temple was then rebuilt three times, and in the first year of King Gwanghaegun's reign (1609) the present main hall, Bogwangjeon Hall, was built, in the form it retains today. Bunhwangsa Temple, together with Hwangnyongsa Temple and Heungnyunsa Temple, was one of the "Seven Temple Sites" built in the royal capital of Gyeongju before Silla's unification of the Three Kingdoms — a tenet of Silla's Buddha-land doctrine referring to seven temple sites in Gyeongju, now Heungnyunsa, Yeongheungsa, Hwangnyongsa, Bunhwangsa, Yeongmyosa, Cheonwangsa, and Damamsa — and it houses the National Treasure Mojeon Stone Pagoda of Bunhwangsa Temple, Gyeongju. Having been investigated systematically over a long period, revealing not only the layout of the temple buildings and how this changed over time but also clarifying most of the temple precinct, it is a site of high historical and academic value.

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Where it is

Region

Gyeongju, Gyeongbuk

Designation

Historic Site · 사적