Nectar Ritual Painting of Bongeunsa Temple

This Gamnodo (Nectar Ritual Painting, a Buddhist painting depicting the rite of offering nectar to hungry ghosts and guiding deceased spirits to the afterlife) was made and enshrined in 1892 together with a Buddha-behind-the-altar painting and a Trinity Bodhisattva painting. It was sponsored by Min Du-ho and a court lady, and painted by the monk-painter Hanbong Changyeop, serving as chief painter (geumeo), together with Hyesan Chugyeon, Hongbeom, Heogok-geung, Hyegwan and Gyeung. It measures 200 cm in height and 316.5 cm in width, a relatively large work. Across the top of the wide composition, the Seven Buddhas stand side by side with palms joined; to the left stand the Amitabha Triad, kings, queens, officials and generals, former kings and queens, and the Thunder God holding drumsticks, while to the right Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva and Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva stand upon clouds. Below the Seven Buddhas, tall posts rise on either side of the altar, hung with three banners of the Trikaya Buddhas — reading "Homage to the Buddha of a Hundred Million Transformation Bodies" (Sakyamuni), "Homage to the Buddha of the Pure Dharma Body" (Vairocana) and "Homage to the Buddha of the Perfect Reward Body" (Rocana) — and set about with abundant flowers and offerings; the banners fluttering in the wind lend the scene a sense of immediacy. In large vases placed to either side at the foot of the stone steps leading up to the altar, red and white peonies are massed in full bloom, vividly conveying the ornate appearance of the altar at the time. To the right of the altar, monks are shown gathered in a row beneath a white awning, chanting sutras; ritual monks conduct the rite striking large drums and cymbals; dancers perform seungmu, the monk's ritual dance; and figures carry large offerings on their heads or in their arms as they move towards the altar. At the centre of the lower register, a large pair of hungry ghosts — tormented spirits with insatiable hunger — is depicted kneeling face to face. Their flaming mouths, thin necks and swollen bellies, the classic attributes of the hungry ghost, are rendered with care, though their expressions verge on the comic. To either side of the hungry ghosts, in scenes divided by trees, a variety of worldly episodes are realistically depicted: men and women in hanbok dancing or fighting; a blacksmith's forge at work; a clown performing a handstand to musical accompaniment while a jester dances with a fan; a game of juggling with bamboo rings; and a shaman performing a shamanic ritual. Scenes of eating, of receiving drink, and of selling goods seem to recreate an actual marketplace of the period. These genre scenes are centred mainly on events connected with funerals and the guiding of spirits to rest, clearly expressing the character of the Gamnodo as a painting for rites that save the souls of the dead on land and in water. On the right of the composition, beneath the flames representing the Thunder God, are a figure sheltering under an umbrella and a scene of someone fleeing a snake, echoing the "rescue from calamity" episodes of the Universal Gate Chapter of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva in the Lotus Sutra; alongside these are everyday scenes of farming, of studying, of tending the sick, of children playing in groups with small drums, and of people setting off to work or to market, together with scenes of criminals being punished and of battle. The colouring throughout makes extensive use of red, yellow, white and blue-green. This Gamnodo shares its iconography with other Gamnodo paintings produced in the Seoul and Gyeonggi region during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including the Gamnodo of Suguksa Temple (1832), of Heungguksa Temple on Suraksan Mountain (1868), and of Gaeunsa Temple (1883). Given that the monk-painters Daeheo Chehun and Cheon-gi, who painted the 1883 Gaeunsa Gamnodo, were deeply involved in Buddhist projects at Bongeunsa Temple, it is thought that this painting may have been produced using the same preparatory sketch that they had used. The dedicatory inscription records that the work was begun on the seventh day of the fifth month of imjin, the eighteenth year of the Guangxu reign era (1892), for the upper, middle and nectar altars together, and that it was completed and its eyes dotted, consecrating it, on the twentieth day of the same month, to be enshrined in the Daebeopdang, the main hall of Bongeunsa Temple on Sudosan Mountain. It names the supervising monks, painters, sutra-reciters and administrators involved — including the chief painter Hanbong Changyeop and the other painters named above — and records the chief patrons, Min Du-ho and a court lady of the Sin clan, together with numerous further donors, both men and women, identified by name and by their birth year in the sexagenary cycle. The dedication prays that all sentient beings connected with the work might together attain buddhahood. Made in 1892 through the patronage of Min Du-ho and a court lady, this Gamnodo is, together with the Gamnodo of Suguksa Temple (1832), of Heungguksa Temple on Suraksan Mountain (1868) and of Gaeunsa Temple (1883), a representative example of the Gamnodo iconography popular in the Seoul and Gyeonggi region during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Its varied genre scenes and lively expression give the whole composition an air of vitality, and despite the crowded depiction of many figures and diverse episodes, the composition remains well balanced. As one of the Buddhist paintings connected with the royal court in the late Joseon period, and a representative Gamnodo of the Seoul-Gyeonggi region, it is designated a Seoul Tangible Cultural Heritage.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Gangnam-gu, Seoul

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산