Okay, so it's getting to the point where I'm starting to be way behind on my blog posts and I don't have the time to tell you EVERYTHING that I'm learning. Which is unfortunate because it's all so fascinating. So I'll be brief with some of these posts, but I will be sure to include a few notable things.
After we visited the Wongsung tomb we had lunch (which was soft tofu stew - 순두부 찌게) and ice cream before getting in the car for some more driving up to the Buddhist temple called Seokkudam (석굳암). It was completed in 751 A.D. and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Every Buddha has 33 unique symbols that identify the figure as a Buddha, including the knobby hair, long ear lobes and androgynous features. The temple at Seokkudam has been found to match the Golden Ratio, and the halo behind the Buddha appears as a perfect circle to viewers but because of the curve of the dome on which it lies it is actually an ellipsoid; architecturally it features a circle motif. We also learned that in Buddhism there are Bodhisattva's (보살) who are people who reach nirvana only to remain in mortality to help others achieve nirvana.
We had to wait in line a long time to get up to the temple and see the Buddha - but as soon as we got out everyone was gone! We managed to get up to the temple at the same time as a massive wave of visitors. Luckily our next stop, which was further down the hill, was not nearly so congested. This temple is called Bulguksa (불국사). Within the temple are many different elements: one that we saw at various temples is the four drums symbolizing water, air, land and spirits/the dead (technically this last one is a bell). By ringing/beating all of the drums the monks call all sentient beings to meditation.
The two pagodas pictured above are the the tabotap (타보탑) and sokatap (소카탑) respectively. The tabotap means many treasure pagoda and although it is made of stone it is cut as if it were wood. The sokatap is Buddha's pagoda and inside was found the oldest printed paper in the world. Further into the temple are various shrines to different major Buddhas including Avalokitesvana and Vairocana (there was a third one but I can't remember who it is). Each Buddha can be identified by his mudra or hand symbol (ex: one hand clasping other's first two fingers/one hand clasped over the other; thumb and middle finger forming circles in a kind of yin-yang formation apart/same formation only the circles are interlocked). Also included in Buddhist temples throughout Korea are evidences of shamanism which permeate Buddhism because of its popularity with the masses. While shamanism believes in many different kinds of spirits, the biggest one is the sanshin (산신). Monks do not like the sanshin at all, and often times sanshin shrines that used to be featured in temples have now been either eliminated or drastically demoted in prominence. For example at Bulguksa the sanshin shrine that used to be there has now been turned into a "disciples hall" and the sanshin shrine is just a painting in a corner of one of the other Buddha shrines. Because everyone still wants to worship the sanshin, you will find areas where there are TONS of little stone towers made by stacking flat-ish stones on top of each other from bigger to smaller. Our group had fun stopping to make our own sanshin stones.
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