Stone Ksitigarbha Pensive Statue of Pyochungsa Temple, Miryang

This work is preserved intact and undamaged within the museum, though it is somewhat regrettable that the bokjang, the votive objects once placed inside the statue, have been scattered and lost. Even so, part of the records from a 1738 statue-repair inscription and a 1796 regilding inscription survive, allowing this stone Ksitigarbha pensive statue to be presumed made no later than the first half of the eighteenth century. In stylistic terms too, the hems of the heavenly robe on the Pyochungsa Ksitigarbha pensive statue, which appear to flutter in the wind, are stiff and rigid, whereas by comparison with the earlier 1666 Avalokitesvara statue of Beopjusa Temple in Boeun, which shares the same form, the robe hems there are vigorous yet fluid, reflecting a difference in period. Therefore, taking the statue in the Gwaneumjeon Hall of Beopjusa Temple, the earliest known example of this style of heavenly robe, as the benchmark, the upper limit for this style cannot be pushed back earlier than the mid-seventeenth century, while the lower limit cannot go later than 1738; this work is accordingly presumed to have been made between the latter half of the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth century. It is also of interest that, although this is a Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva statue, it wears its robes in the same style as an independently enshrined Avalokitesvara statue, and the possibility that this statue too was enshrined independently cannot be ruled out.

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Where it is

Region

Miryang, Gyeongnam

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산