Hwaom Temple
Kurye County, South Cholla Province
Hwaom Temple is located in the heart of the Chiri Mountains, among Korea's highest and most
rugged. The temple takes its name from the Avatamsaka Sutra (Hwaom-gyong), which stresses
the universality of all things. The site was selected in 554 by Yon-gi, a senior monk of the Shilla
Kingdom, and the temple was expanded by the master Uisang in 634. During the Japanese
invasions of the late sixteenth century Hwaom Temple was destroyed, but it was rebuilt in 1630.
Its main hall, Kakhwangjon, is especially large, towering above the temple courtyard with a twostory
hipped and gabled roof. The hall's interior is only one story with a cavernous ceiling. A
large altar stands at the center of the hall. Beneath it is a stone carving from the Avatamsaka
Sutra.
T'ongdo Temple
Yangsan County, South Kyongsang Province
T'ongdo Temple was built in 646 by the renowned monk Cha-jang upon his return from China
with relics of the Buddha. These relics are enshrined at T'ongdo Temple in a bell-shaped stupa
elevated on a platform called the Diamond Stairs, the temple's central feature. There is no statue
of the Buddha here, because the relics of the Buddha represent the Buddha.
Taeungjon
Treasure No. 144, 15.8m X 10.1m
T'ongdo Temple's main hall, or Taeungjon, is situated so that believers perform their chants
looking out upon the stupa. The present hall was reconstructed in 1641 after numerous fires and
invasions, but its foundation and stairs date to the Shilla period. The structure is quite different
from other main temple halls, because it is oriented toward the stupa outside and does not house
a central Buddha figure.
Pongjong Temple
Andong County, North Kyongsang Province
Pongjong Temple was founded in 682 by the great Shilla monk Uisang. Many legends refer to its
location. According to one, the monk made a phoenix out of paper, flew it from a nearby
mountain, and built a temple where it landed. Another legend tells of a celestial horse that
advised the monk, when he was chanting in the forest, to build a temple on the mountain.
Kungnakjon
National Treasure No. 15
Pongjong Temple's main hall is one of Korea's oldest wooden structures. It was built in the late
twelfth century but resembles an eighth century Chinese temple in its multicluster brackets,
which consist of clusters of wooden brackets on top of the column heads and on the horizontal
beams between columns. These complicated brackets were introduced from Yuan China and into
Korea in the mid-Koryo period.
Songgwang Temple
Sungju County, South Cholla Province
While T'ongdo Temple is known for housing relics of the Buddha, Songgwang Temple has long
represented the Buddhist community, both monks and laity. The temple was founded toward the
end of the Shilla period and at the time was home to only thirty or forty monks. It expanded
when one of Korea's most renowned masters, Chi-nul (1158-1210), moved his Concentration
and Wisdom Community, a study and practice group, to a hermitage in the mountains nearby.
This grew to become Songgwang Temple, which prior to the Japanese invasions of the late
sixteenth century, housed hundreds of monks. The temple was destroyed by fire in the sixteenth
century and rebuilt on a smaller scale during the Choson Dynasty. Today construction continues
as the temple is an important Zen center which attracts believers from around the world.
Songgwang Temple is also known for its distinctive wooden Buddha-triad casket (National
Treasure No. 42), the Medicine Buddha Hall (Treasure No. 302) and Koryo era portraits of the
revered masters Chi-nul and Chin-gak, in the Hall of the National Preceptors.