Pal Statue Lone Arhat Nahanjeon Hall of Beomeosa Temple

This building, seven bays across the front and one bay in depth, with double eaves and a gabled roof, is one of the subsidiary Buddha halls now standing at the upper western side of Daeungjeon Hall of Beomeosa Temple, and it has stood on this site without change since at least 1706. According to records surveyed in 1902, up to that time separate buildings — Palsangjeon Hall and Nahanjeon Hall — stood to either side of the central Cheontaemun Gate; then, over roughly a year of construction from November 1905 to November 1906, they were newly refurbished into their present form. Accordingly, the architectural form of the Palsangjeon section on the west and the Nahanjeon section on the east is believed to retain, essentially unaltered, the appearance they had before the 1906 reconstruction, though it is presumed that deteriorated members were replaced and the internal timber framework repaired. The Dokseongjeon (Hall of the Lone Sage) section, refurbished in 1906, has a distinctive form in which the door frame is bent into a semicircle from a single continuous timber; the triangular wall panels between the changbang beams are carved in openwork with vine motifs on solid boards, and while the window lattices of Palsangjeon and Nahanjeon are of the plain crossed-lattice type, those of Dokseongjeon are beautifully finished with flower-lattice patterns — decorative work of a kind rarely matched elsewhere. Thus, although the Palsangjeon, Dokseongjeon and Nahanjeon of Beomeosa Temple were reconstructed in 1906, they retain, in bay spacing, timber framework, plan and elevation, much of the architectural form dating from 1706 onward; in particular, the housing of three separate Buddha halls within a single building, together with the exceptional design and carving of the central Dokseongjeon opening, are extremely rare features, and the building is judged to possess full value as cultural heritage.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Geumjeong-gu, Busan

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산