Sixteen Arhats Statue of Jingwansa Temple

The Nahanjeon Hall of Jingwansa Temple today enshrines a total of twenty statues: sixteen arhat images, eight on each side of the Shakyamuni Triad, together with one image of Jeseok, one messenger figure and two guardian kings. All are clay sculptures, now finished in vivid colour, and each is a modest 47 to 53 cm in height. The sixteen arhats are arranged with the odd-numbered ones – the first (Pindola Bharadvaja), third (Kanakavatsa), fifth (Nakula), seventh (Kalika), ninth (Jivaka), eleventh (Rahula), thirteenth (Angaja) and fifteenth (Ajita) – on the viewer's right, and the even-numbered ones – the second (Kanakabharadvaja), fourth (Subinda), sixth (Bhadra), eighth (Vajraputra), tenth (Panthaka), twelfth (Nagasena), fourteenth (Vanavasin) and sixteenth (Cudapanthaka) – on the viewer's left, each freely rendered with distinctive poses and attributes. They are shown, for instance, with palms joined in prayer, in meditation, with a hand resting on the knee, or scratching their back, and holding objects such as a lotus flower, a banana-leaf fan, a mirror, a brush, a haetae (a mythical guardian lion), a dragon or a sutra. The facial expressions and postures of each arhat are not only highly realistic but also depicted with humour, breaking away from the strict, formulaic conventions of Buddhist sculpture to give an individualised, lively quality closer to portrait sculpture. The figure enshrined beside the sixteen arhats takes the form of a bodhisattva, with a jewelled crown and celestial robes; since a votive inscription found inside the Sixteen Arhats of Songgwangsa Temple in Wanju identifies a similarly bodhisattva-like figure made together with its sixteen arhats as an image of Jeseok, the bodhisattva-form figure here is likewise presumed to represent Jeseok. Although the Sixteen Arhats of Jingwansa Temple lack a sense of dynamism and give a somewhat delicate impression, they are a fine example of the characteristics typical of sets of sixteen arhats from the late Joseon period.

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Where it is

Region

Eunpyeong-gu, Seoul

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산