Standing Naju Unheungsa Temple Ji Gilt-bronze Buddha

The gilt-bronze standing Buddha from the Unheungsa Temple site, Naju, was excavated on 16 September 2001 during an excavation of the temple site conducted by the Jeonnam Cultural Heritage Research Institute. It is a Unified Silla Buddha notable for having its halo, body and pedestal cast together as a single piece. The usnisha, the cranial protuberance symbolising wisdom, is relatively thick and rises high. At first glance the hair appears plain, but close inspection reveals clear traces of tightly curled snail-shell locks, despite considerable wear from long ages, and these curls extend up into the usnisha itself. The face has sharply arched, bow-shaped eyebrows and straight, almond-shaped eyes with thickly raised eyelids. The nose and lips are damaged, so their exact contours cannot be made out, but the appropriate fullness of the cheeks around the mouth is characteristic of gilt-bronze Buddhas of the 8th–9th centuries. Both ears hang down vertically and long, stopping at the shoulders, and it is notable that the samdo, the three folds conventionally shown on the neck beneath the chin, do not appear. The robe is worn in the tongyeon style, covering both shoulders deeply; U-shaped folds descend to the chest, their ends drawing a deep U-shape before rising again to drape over both arms and meet at the back of the body. The legs stand upright, slightly apart, with the insteps and toes clearly rendered. The hand gestures form the combined mudra seen in Korea's earliest Buddhist statues, the abhaya mudra (fear-not gesture) together with the varada mudra (wish-granting gesture). The pedestal is circular, consisting of an upper and lower section. The lower section has two encircling incised bands, above which is carved a downward-facing lotus with eight single petals. The upper section likewise bears an eight-petalled upward-facing lotus; the carving technique of the lotus patterns on both sections is very simple and plain. The halo is a boat-shaped whole-body halo, its upper tip slightly damaged and bent; during conservation treatment it was left as found for fear that further intervention might cause damage. Although this type of boat-shaped whole-body halo is commonly seen on Korean Buddhist statues, this example is somewhat unusual: around the level of the face at the top, two oval forms appear overlapping one another, a halo type rarely found among gilt-bronze Buddhas in Korea. In its decoration, the outer edge is filled entirely with flame patterns, within which are drawn an overlapping head-halo and body-halo of the same oval outline, divided by two incised bands. The head-halo and body-halo are decorated with lotus patterns, but the technique is not intricate or fine, and is highly stylised. The back of the halo is pierced through with an oval hole running from top to bottom, which also passes through the interior of the Buddha's body and the pedestal. The gilt-bronze standing Buddha from the Unheungsa Temple site, Naju, has the boat-shaped whole-body halo commonly seen on gilt-bronze Buddhas of the Three Kingdoms period, yet unusually takes the form of a double halo of two overlapping ovals. It is the first example in Jeollanam-do in which both halo and pedestal survive intact. The statue has now been fully conserved and remains in very good condition. As a Unified Silla Buddha, it has historical value given how few artefacts of the same period survive, and it holds important scholarly value for understanding and comparative research on ancient Buddhist culture. It is also outstanding in artistic terms, in its detailed decorative technique and its boat-shaped whole-body halo.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Naju, Jeonnam & Gwangju

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산