Stone Relief Buddha In Okcheon-am Temple
After finishing looking around the Buddha relief in Bota-sa near the Korea University, we rode to another temple which was located one hour distance by car from Bota-sa. My friend guided me there was a same style of Buddha relief in Okcheon-am.
Here ‘am’ means a small size of temple. Okcheon means clean stream.
The style of the Buddha relief was as same as that of Bota-sa.
The relief was painted with white color and designated as the National Treasury.
The pavilion was built to protect the Buddha relief.
The face of the Buddha was similar to that of the Bota-sa.
It was carved on the rounded rock, so it must be not easy to carve the rock.
This similarity means that those two Buddha statues were built in the same period.
It may be an ages between Goryeo and Choson dynasty.
There were several lanterns behind the pavilion.
Lanterns were hung for the memory of the birth of Buddha.
There were small figures on the corner stone of the pavilion.
It was so cute, so I photoed them.
It was strange that I never had noticed the Buddha statue in this place, even though I had walked this area so often when I was in high school.
There was a Mountain god pavilion near the Budda statue.
Some women had sat for a long time and had prayed there.
One different aspect in this Mountain god pavilion from other ones was there was a mountain god stone relief instead of the painting.
The mountain god statue was very well carved.
When we compare those statues with other statue, we can realize how those reliefs were well made.
I have lived more than 40 years in Seoul, but my foreigner friend knows better than me.
This chance made me look around the whole Buddhist temple one by one in Seoul city.
By this chance, I found out ghat there were lots of old temples in Seoul.
Impressive statue, building, and somewhat artwork there @slowwalker because of how the imposing monument was crafted by devout monks and workers to make that place so timeless for believers to come in and pay their respects and to pray.
as always ... great stuff
it might actually not be that unusual to know foreign places better than ones own surrundings-I was born in Germany where trips to near by countries like Austria,Netherlands,Spain,France,Italy,Greece and so forth are only brief car rides-30 years ago I emigrated to America.Till today I have way more geographical sense and memory of Italy than my own home country-I guess one takes ones close proximity for granted and less interesting than striving for afar-Emilie Dickinson puts this nicely in her poems of how we always think of someplace else rather than being in the presence...
Gran post
An interesting post today, @slowwalker, illustrated with many beautiful photos.
The stone relief of the mountain god contrasted with the more ornate, painted depiction of Buddha.
The women were kneeling before the relief praying, obviously for protection and prosperity - and they were motivated not to neglect this worship by the presence of tigers that could be dispatched by the mountain god to wreak harm if offerings were not regularly made to him.
It's an aspect of shamanistic religion that involves appeasing the gods and a reminder that such worship is not always motivated by piety, but often by fear.
So much of life is uncertain but fear seems to me to not be the best motive for worship.
Seoul appears to be a repository of sacred places displaying many varied views of spiritual experiences.
Have a good day, my friend.
So beautiful, thankyou @slowwalker, love the history and education about these temples. Truly magnificient!
es un lugar muy hermoso espero algún día conocer ese lugar los colores son muy bonito el templo es muy genial y antiguo
this is the amazing photograpy
lovely great
Amazing photography!
절도 한국적인 멋이 있네요.
섬세하게 벽에 새기고 칠한 멋도 있구요.