Korean Temple Motifs - Beautiful Symbols of the Buddhist Faith

책 소개

Preface Buddhist temples must be seen first and foremost as houses of worship rather than as tourist sites or cultural legacies. They are places to promulgate and cultivate the Buddha’s Dharma (Truth). At large temple complexes, you will find numerous gates and halls, from the One-pillar Gate at the entrance to the temple complex to the halls in the main courtyard. There is a temple bell and a pagoda or two, various statues inside and outside the halls and many decorative motifs all around. The designs and patterns are more than mere decoration, however. These are sacred places that solemnly portray the goodness and beauty of the idealized Buddha realm and express the Buddha’s noble virtue. We refer to them as majesty. The various decorative motifs, statuary and halls not only convey the Buddhist spiritual world and worldview but also are also visual representations of the religious aspirations of those who seek the Buddha’s way. For example, the One-pillar Gate at the temple entrance symbolizes the One-vehicle (universal) Law of Mah?y?na teaching. The pagodas represent the Buddha who is still believed to exist. The dragons on the pillars at the front of the Buddha halls serve as guardians and symbolize the ship that ferries the faithful to the Pure Land. The ubiquitous lotus images symbolize the purity of the Buddha nature and the wishes of the faithful to be reborn in the Pure Land. Thus, the diverse sacred objects at the temple may differ in mode of expression but they are consistent in terms of their religious aspiration and Buddhist idealization. Objects of interest at a temple include buildings, statues carvings and decorative patterns. All are imbued with profound meaning and symbolism. If the onlooker does not understand or overlooks the religious significance, then everything becomes relegated to nothing more than ornamentation, old buildings or sculptural artifacts. There are two steps to appreciate temple decorations. The first and basic step is to observe outward appearances of the decorations. The deeper, fully appreciating step is to read the symbols behind the outward forms. The real appreciation of temple decorations means seeing their behind-the-scene symbols through the outward appearances of those decorations. Such appreciation requires great insight into attributes, characters and origins of the specific subjects. True appreciation also requires one to consider the positions and forms in which the decorative items are expressed With this in mind, I have sought to find the symbolic meanings of various temple decorative items, personally visiting some 250 temples nationwide over the past five years or so. In the process, I asked myself repeatedly why any given item is in a particular form and position and what it meant. Finding the answers has been difficult as specialized literature on the subject is lacking. I began by using my intuition and imagination to discover the Buddhist doctrines, ideas and belief system. Naturally, that was not enough to explain objectively and in depth the given symbolic meaning of each structure or decorative patterns. Therefore, I referred to texts, Buddhist tales, Buddhist dictionaries, related picture books and classics. Sometimes I also visited Buddhist temples to find out the monks’ views. As such, I strove to enhance the objectivity and depth of this book in various ways. More remains to be done, and I would like to see more research follow on the basis of my work. For reference, this book explains structures and decorations at Buddhist temples in a comprehensive manner. Nevertheless, I used several explanations for items that symbolically express the belief system such as Bulguksa’s ??kyamuni Pagoda and Pagoda of Many Treasures of, and Tongdo-sa’s Alms-bowl on a Pedestal. This book also deals with spatial symbolism such as the arrangements of structures or images of the Buddha because putting the meanings of temple spaces into perspective is…

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