Monk’s Outer Vestment and Mantle at Seonamsa Temple

These are a gasa, a Buddhist monk's ceremonial outer vestment, and a takui, a cloth used to cover a ceremonial altar table, held at Seonamsa Temple: two gasa — the Gasa Embroidered with the Names of the Three Jewels (Sambomyeong Jasu Gasa) and the Gasa Woven with Silver Thread in a Twin Dragon Pattern (Ssangnyongmun Jigeun Gasa) — and one takui, the Takui Embroidered with a Dragon Pattern (Yongmun Jasu Takui). The Sambomyeong Jasu Gasa is said to have been bestowed on State Preceptor Daegak Uicheon by the king. It uses a plain crimson base fabric, with three pairs of ties attached at the top and sides. The characters 天 (heaven) and 王 (king) are embroidered at its four corners, and at the centre a three-legged crow symbolising the sun and a rabbit pounding a mortar symbolising the moon are meticulously worked in flat stitch (pyeongsu, a technique using stitches of even length). The rank of a gasa is marked by the number of jo, strips of joined fabric panels, and this piece is made of twenty-five jo, the highest possible rank; the names of buddhas and bodhisattvas and the titles of sutras are densely embroidered over its whole surface, giving it great value as a source and dating it to the eighteenth century. The Ssangnyongmun Jigeun Gasa is a nine-jo gasa on a base fabric patterned with two dragons. Silver thread is woven in only over the patterned areas, a technique that appears from the Goryeo period onward and is also found in textiles used in Buddhist temples and at the royal court during the Joseon period; it is an important artefact for the study of textile production and pattern composition, believed to date from sometime after the eighteenth century. The Yongmun Jasu Takui, thought to have been used as a cover for a Dharma table, is decorated all over with dragon, cloud and character motifs, with the phrase "may the sacred life last ten thousand years" (聖壽萬年) arranged in a cross shape at its centre. The ground pattern is a continuous diamond lattice worked in light brown thread, over which the dragon and cloud motifs are applied to give a raised, three-dimensional effect, a distinctive embroidery technique. Judging from its patterns and technique, it is considered to date from sixteenth- to seventeenth-century Ming-dynasty China, and it is an important artefact illustrating textile exchange between Korea and Ming China. The gasa and takui held at Seonamsa Temple are valued as important material for research into the history of Buddhist vestments and into embroidery and textiles of the late Joseon period.

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Where it is

Region

Suncheon, Jeonnam & Gwangju

Designation

National Folklore Heritage · 국가민속문화유산