The Way to Bulguksa Temple in Gyeongju, A Buddhist Style of Making a Road to the Temple.

It was very cold day when I visited Bulguksa.

I could not pass away Bulguksa without entering into because of my memory on the past. It was 20 years ago when I had been there last time. Time flies.

I vividly remembered the very last day when I dropped by Gyeongju. It was a very hot summer. My son was 3 years old at that time. He had cried all day long to the way of Bulguksa in the car. It was very difficult to care for the baby at that time. But I am missing that time.

Now my son was conscripted to the Army. I’d like to travel Gyeongju once again with my son.

Anyway, I’d like to introduce Bulgukasa temple from this posting.
Bulkugsa temple was listed on UNESCO in the year of 1995. It means that Bulguksa is the most representative temple of Shilla dynasty.

Before the starting on Bulguksa, it is helpful to study brief history of Bulguksa

Bulguksa is the one of highlight place in traveling Gyeongju, actually it must be the representative architecture of Korea. When you visit Korea, you need to look around Bulguksa essentially.

Bulguksa was built in 528 AD by the premier Kim Daesung. The premier Kim Daesung had built Bulguksa for his parents.
But today’s Bulguka is not original temple of Shilla dynasty.
Bulguksa was fired in 1592 by the Japanese solders during the Japanese Invasion.
After the War against Japan, Choson dynasty had rebuilt Bulguksa again, but Bulguksa was desolated with the collapse of Choson dynasty.

Bulguksa had been rebuilt several times until today, so we could say Bulguksa of today is a combination architecture between Shilla and Choson Dynasty. The Stone base is a work of Shilla dynasty and the wooden building is a Choson dynasty’s architecture.

What I’d like to post today is the approaching way to Bulguksa.
None of specialists seemed to concentrate in the way to Bulguksa.
But in my point of view, we need to focus to the very starting point to Bulguka.

One of the interest thing was Bulguksa could not be seen at the entrance of the Temple.

Of course in many cases, we could not look at the main temple building from the entrance.
But the style of Bulguksa is different from other temples.
The way from the entrance gate to the main building was bended slightly in purpose.
The way to the main building was made in Curving model.

Maybe when this temple was built, the width of the road was much more narrow than that of now days.
In my opinion, narrow road must be more suitable to the philosophy of Buddhism
Narrow road could show the Buddhist philosophy better than Wide road.
Indirectness is the essence of Buddhist philosophy.

There were 2 roads to the main building, one is front gate, the other is backward gate.
Both of them have same system of indirectness.

In the case of front gate, they made a small pond to make a curve of the road to the main building.

Why did they make a curve on the road ?
In my guess, their goal seemed for cooling and slowing down the feeling of people at last moment.

When you visit Bulguksa, you need to keep in mind the meaning of a curve of the road.
It must be the first button to enjoy Bulguksa.

Thank you for reading.