Yeongsanjeon Hall Stone Buddha Triad and Sixteen Arhats Statue of Deoksa Temple, Cheongdo

Deoksa Temple is said to have been founded at the end of Silla or the beginning of Goryeo, but as no documents or historical evidence survive, the details are unknown; the present temple was built during the reign of King Seonjo of Joseon. Hwang Eung-gyu, who took office as magistrate of Cheongdo, is said to have built the temple in 1576 (the ninth year of King Seonjo) because the form of Jugusan Mountain resembled, in feng shui terms, a dog running away; to make the fleeing dog stay by giving it rice cake, he built the temple and called it "Tteokjeol" ("Rice-cake Temple"), written in Chinese characters as Byeongsa (餠寺), which later changed to be called Deoksa (德寺). In Yeongsanjeon Hall, a total of twenty-one statues are arranged to either side, centred on a triad comprising Sakyamuni Buddha, Maitreya Bodhisattva and Jehwagalla Bodhisattva, together with sixteen arhat statues and two guardian statues. The Sakyamuni triad is in good condition, but three of the arhat statues have cracks in the body, and one, recently made of plaster, has been excluded from the designation. The Sakyamuni triad has recently been regilded, and the arhat statues have also been repainted. Among the sixteen arhats, only Venerable Kasyapa and Venerable Ananda stand with their hands joined together, while the rest hold objects such as a lion, a bamboo clapper, a tiger, a bird, prayer beads, a brush, a lotus flower or a sutra. A votive text found inside the statues reveals that they were made in 1678 by the head sculptor-monk Seungho (勝湖), and records the names of the individual figures and their donors. Also found among the objects enshrined inside the statues were the votive text and two volumes of the Lotus Sutra, which were designated together with the statues as Gyeongsangbuk-do Tangible Cultural Heritage. According to a record of their origins, the statues were originally enshrined at Cheonjusan on Hwaaksan Mountain in Seomyeon, Cheongdo, but it is not known when they were moved to Deoksa Temple.

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Where it is

Region

Cheongdo, Gyeongbuk

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산