Jeseok Guardian Deities Painting of Beomeosa Temple

This painting, preserved at Beomeosa Temple, is a sinjungdo, a devotional Buddhist painting depicting Jeseokcheon (Indra) together with his various attendant deities. A sinjungdo depicts, in an easily readable form, the guardian deities who in Mahayana Buddhism are enshrined as protective spirits of the Dharma and have become objects of worship. This Jeseok Guardian Deities Painting is painted in colour on a silk ground. The composition is broadly divided into upper and lower registers: the upper register is centred on Jeseokcheon, flanked by heavenly boy and girl attendants and the princes of the sun palace and the moon palace, while the lower register is centred on Witaecheon, who wears a feathered helmet, flanked by the Eight Vajra Guardians, five on the right and three on the left. A green-blue pigment has been applied very thickly throughout, and the manner of depicting the faces and robes of Jeseokcheon and the other attendant deities is consistent across the figures. An inscription at the centre of the lower part of the painting records that it was made in the twenty-second year of the Jiaqing era, that is, in 1817, the twelfth year of King Sunjo of Joseon. Given its condition, its iconography and its painting style, the Jeseok Guardian Deities Painting of Beomeosa Temple is regarded as important academic material for the study of the history of Buddhist painting in the Joseon period.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Geumjeong-gu, Busan

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산