Seated Manggyeongam Hermitage Rock-carved Buddha

This Buddha image is carved into the rock face at Manggyeongam Hermitage, halfway up Mount Yeongjangsan. A rectangular niche was cut into the rock and the image carved in high relief to fill it completely. On the same rock face, fourteen rectangular panels were cut and inscribed with writing. According to one of the inscriptions, in 1897, the first year of the Gwangmu era, Yi Gyu-seung carved a statue of Gwaneum (Avalokitesvara) and founded a temple there. Since the rock-carved Buddha is identified as not being a bodhisattva image, it appears unrelated to Yi Gyu-seung's Gwaneum statue, but the inscription nonetheless offers a clue to when the Buddha image itself was made. The Buddha has a shaven head. The face is carved in quite high relief, and the shoulders are broad. Although the details of the face are hard to make out clearly, a somewhat long, straight nose sits prominently at its centre. The mouth is rather small, and the face bears a fixed expression from which any smile has vanished. The right hand rests neatly on the knee, pointing towards the ground, in what appears to be the bhumisparsha mudra, the earth-touching gesture symbolising the Buddha's enlightenment, but because the left hand is held against the chest, it cannot be clearly identified as such. Manggyeongam Hermitage is known as a place where, from the end of Goryeo to the beginning of Joseon, the king would come in person to pray for the prosperity of the nation and the wellbeing of the people. Accordingly, although the carving technique is crude and the image lacks several of the elements a Buddha image should properly have, it holds documentary value as a late Joseon rock-carved Buddha enshrined at a site of significance in the history of Korean Buddhism.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Seongnam, Gyeonggi

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산