Stone Seated Tejaprabha Buddha and Attendant Figures of Anyangam Hermitage

Inside the Geumnyunjeon Hall, eleven images are arranged to left and right around the central Tejaprabha Buddha: the Bodhisattva of Moonlight, the Seven Stars, boy and girl attendants, and others. The central stone statue has long been known as Bhaisajyaguru, the Medicine Buddha, because it holds a round object in its left hand resting on its knee, but it is more correctly identified as the Tejaprabha Buddha, the principal Buddha of the Seven Star Buddhas. The image of the Tejaprabha Buddha, a symbolic representation of the North Star, is recorded in the Anyangamji, a history of Anyangam Hermitage, as having been made in 1899. It was originally a stone statue, but it is now thickly coated in plaster, so that its original form is difficult to make out; even so, it conveys an overall impression that is simple yet lively. There would originally have been an image of the Bodhisattva of Sunlight as the left-hand attendant of the Tejaprabha Buddha, but this has since been lost, leaving only the Bodhisattva of Moonlight as the right-hand attendant. Beside the Bodhisattva of Moonlight, images of the Seven Stellar Lords are arranged to left and right. It is a distinctive feature that these Seven Stellar Lords, who are normally omitted from paintings of the Seven Stars, are here made as statues instead. Anyangam Hermitage is currently the only known case in which the Seven Stellar Lords survive as statues rather than as a painting. Likewise, although the Tejaprabha Buddha is commonly depicted in paintings, there are not many cases in which it survives as a statue.

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Where it is

Region

Jongno-gu, Seoul

Designation

Cultural Heritage Material · 문화유산자료