Daeungjeon Hall Guardian Deities Painting of Beomeosa Temple

This work, hung on the inner right-hand wall of the Daeungjeon Hall at Beomeosa Temple, was painted in 1882 — the same year as the Samjangbosaldo (Painting of the Three Bodhisattva Repositories) on the left-hand wall — by the same group of monk-painters led by Gijeon. Its overall composition and colour tones accordingly differ little from those of that painting. In the upper register, the three-eyed, eight-armed Mahesvara is placed at the centre, together with Ilcheonja, the deva of the sun, to one side and Wolcheonja, the deva of the moon, to the other; to the left stand Daebeomcheon (Brahma) and Dongjin Bosal, a youthful guardian bodhisattva, and to the right Jeseokcheonwang (Indra), making three deities of the heavenly host in all. Around them are heavenly boy and girl attendants, while the lower register, filled with the guardian generals of the dragon-kings' retinue and of the wrathful kings, has at its centre ten heavenly maidens playing various instruments, flanked left and right by further guardian figures. Because so many figures had to be fitted into a confined picture space, they are arranged in four ranked rows, giving the composition a somewhat formulaic quality. The central figures of the upper register have their faces painted white, while the thirty-three guardian figures of the lower register, including the eight kinds of dragon-deities, are distinguished by faces tinted a reddish flesh colour. At the centre of the upper register, Mahesvara wears a red heavenly robe with a hangpae, a type of ornament worn about the neck, and holds a sutra book and a vajra bell in his hands, which are raised to either shoulder; his lowered hands are hidden behind other figures and are not shown. A guardian-deities painting depicts an assembly of deities of like nature and rank — the heavenly host, the dragon-kings, and the wrathful kings — together with a variety of guardian generals, and rich variation is achieved through the arrangement of these figures and the addition or omission of particular characters. This painting is a rare example, among late-Joseon guardian-deity paintings, of a composition centred on Mahesvara together with Brahma and Indra. It is well preserved and large in scale, and, with its unusually large retinue of attendant figures, it is a heritage of considerable value for the study of late-Joseon guardian-deity paintings.

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Where it is

Region

Geumjeong-gu, Busan

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산