Standing Stone Buddha in Sigok-ri, Jecheon

This statue stands beside a cultivated field in front of Gipeungol Village, Sigok 1-ri, Jecheon. It retains its pedestal (daejwa) and mandorla (gwangbae), but is severely damaged in places. It is thought not to be in its original location but rather to have been enshrined at a nearby temple site; it was stolen in 1999 and recovered and re-erected in 2002. The Buddha's body and the mandorla are carved from a single stone, while the pedestal was made separately, with the statue's feet fitted into it. The face is round, the cheeks appearing full, though the features are almost impossible to make out owing to wear. The hair is unadorned, without curls, and a faint usnisha (the cranial protuberance symbolising enlightenment) remains. The shoulders are broad and the waist narrow, and the chest and abdomen show a degree of volume. The robe is worn baring the right shoulder, and below the waist the hem spreads widely to the sides. The left hand is raised to chest height with the palm showing, while the right hand, fingers drawn together, rests against the abdomen. The mandorla is carved narrowly around the body: two raised lines form a circular halo around the head, and flame patterns appear within both the head halo and the body halo. The pedestal, by contrast, is of better stone than the body, shows far superior carving, and is well preserved: it is a lotus pedestal with full, voluminous inverted lotus petals, above which an octagonal base in two tiers is carved in relief, and on top of this the statue's feet are carved in place. Thus, while the pedestal is relatively well preserved and finely carved, the body of the Buddha is crudely carved and badly worn, suggesting that the pedestal is original while the statue itself was damaged at some point and re-erected later. Weathered and damaged by human interference, the statue follows the traditional style of standing Buddhas of the Unified Silla period, but its carving shows reduced volume and the robe folds are rendered in a formulaic way; the lotus petals of the pedestal, too, compared with those of the height of Unified Silla, show carving typical of a period of stylistic decline. The date of production is therefore presumed to be around the early Goryeo period. The Standing Stone Buddha in Sigok-ri, Jecheon, judging from the carving style of the Buddha and its lotus-patterned pedestal, is a valuable record illustrating how a typical Unified Silla Buddha form developed into a localised regional style, a type of which few examples survive.

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Where it is

Region

Jecheon, Chungbuk

Designation

Cultural Heritage Material · 문화유산자료