Gobongguksajujawon Buddha

A space carved from wood, stone or metal to house a Buddhist statue, made on a much smaller scale than an ordinary building, is called a bulgam (portable Buddhist shrine). A bulgam offers important evidence not only of the style of the statue enshrined within it but also of the architectural style of its period. This one is said to have been the personal votive image (wonbul) of Priest Gobong, the sixteenth state preceptor (guksa) of Songgwangsa Temple. When the doors of this shrine are opened, door panels are set into the inner walls on both sides, and buddhas and bodhisattvas are carved in relief on the interior walls. The principal image at the centre is Vairocana Buddha, whose hand gesture is not the mudra normally taken by Vairocana images since the Unified Silla period, but the vajra-fist mudra. The buddhas on either side are both tathagata images: on the left, Nosana Buddha, the reward-body Buddha, and on the right, Sakyamuni, the transformation-body Buddha, each placed as an attendant figure. This arrangement of a Buddhist triad became the standard form seen in the Daejeokgwangjeon Hall of temples from the Joseon period onward. Below, two disciples of the Buddha stand, flanked on either side by seated bodhisattva images. As for the halos, the tathagata images display both a head halo and a body halo, while the bodhisattva and disciple images have only a head halo carved. Except for the two disciple images on the central wall, all these figures are set on a lotus-pattern pedestal. Of particular note in this shrine are the images on the door panels: whereas such door panels usually bear guardian deity (Inwang) figures, here they instead show Kshitigarbha Bodhisattva wearing a hood on the right and Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva wearing a jewelled crown on the left. The expressions of the figures in this shrine are all unusual, appearing strained or twisted. Carving delicate expressions within so small a space would certainly have been difficult, but it is nonetheless hard to find comparable facial expressions elsewhere among Korean Buddhist statues.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Suncheon, Jeonnam & Gwangju

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산