Bulguksa Temple and Seokguram Grotto: Silla Buddhist Art (751)

Bulguksa Temple and Seokguram Grotto are two Buddhist monuments on Mount Tohamsan, near Gyeongju in south-eastern Korea, begun in 751 under the kingdom of Unified Silla. Planned as a pair by the official Kim Daeseong, they combine stone architecture, sculpture and Buddhist ideas of paradise into what many art historians regard as the high point of early Korean art. Since 1995 they have formed a single UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Background: Silla’s golden age

After the kingdom of Silla defeated its rivals Baekje and Goguryeo with Tang Chinese help and then pushed the Tang out of the peninsula, it ruled most of Korea from the 670s. This period of Unified Silla brought relative peace, close cultural contact with Tang China and great wealth to the capital, Gyeongju.

Buddhism, adopted as Silla’s state religion in the sixth century, was central to court life. Kings and aristocrats sponsored temples as acts of merit and as protection for the realm. By the mid-eighth century, under King Gyeongdeok (reigned 742–765), Silla’s craftsmen had absorbed Tang styles and developed their own refined approach to stone carving and building.

Gyeongju itself was then one of the larger cities of East Asia, laid out with royal palaces, aristocratic mansions and dozens of temples. Mount Tohamsan, east of the city, overlooked the routes to the coast and the East Sea, from which Silla feared attack by Japanese raiders. Placing major sanctuaries on its slopes linked religious devotion with the protection of the kingdom, an idea that ran through much of Silla Buddhism and is also seen in the underwater tomb of King Munmu off the nearby shore.

Kim Daeseong and the founding legend

The main written account comes from the Samguk yusa, a collection of histories and legends compiled by the monk Il-yeon in the late thirteenth century. It says that Kim Daeseong, a high official who served as chief minister, began building Bulguksa in 751 for his parents in his present life and the stone grotto, then called Seokbulsa, for his parents in a previous life.

The same source tells a legend that Kim Daeseong was the reincarnation of a poor boy who had given his family’s small field to a temple. Historians treat this story as pious tradition, but the date of 751 and Kim’s role are widely accepted. Kim died in 774 before the work was finished, and the Silla court completed it, which suggests that the project had the backing of the state as well as one aristocratic family.

A smaller temple may have existed on the Bulguksa site earlier. Later temple records claim a foundation in 528 under King Beopheung, but the great complex visible today goes back to Kim Daeseong’s rebuilding.

Bulguksa: a temple of the Buddha Land

The name Bulguksa means “Temple of the Buddha Land”. Its layout presents paradise on earth. The main courtyards stand on high stone terraces, reached by stone staircases designed as bridges. The double flight called Cheongungyo and Baegungyo, the Blue Cloud and White Cloud Bridges, leads to the Jahamun gate and the main hall, Daeungjeon, dedicated to Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha. A second pair of stairs, Yeonhwagyo and Chilbogyo, leads to Geungnakjeon, the hall of Amitabha, Buddha of the Western Paradise.

In front of the main hall stand two stone pagodas of very different character. Seokgatap, the Pagoda of Shakyamuni, is a plain three-storey tower admired for its proportions. Dabotap, the Pagoda of Many Treasures, is an unusually complex structure of stairs, railings and lotus forms, rare anywhere in East Asia. The pair illustrates a passage of the Lotus Sutra in which the Buddha of Many Treasures appears to confirm Shakyamuni’s teaching.

The temple also preserves two gilt-bronze seated Buddhas of the Silla period, an Amitabha and a Vairocana, both designated National Treasures of South Korea.

Seokguram: a stone cave sanctuary

Seokguram, about 3 kilometres up the mountain, imitates the rock-cut cave temples of India and China. Because the local granite was too hard to hollow out, Silla builders assembled the cave from hundreds of shaped granite blocks and covered the structure with earth. A rectangular antechamber and short corridor lead into a round chamber roofed with a dome of stones, held in place by projecting tie-stones.

At its centre sits a large stone Buddha, roughly 3.4 metres tall, seated on a lotus pedestal with one hand touching the earth, the gesture of the Buddha’s enlightenment. The walls around him carry relief carvings of bodhisattvas, the Buddha’s disciples, Hindu gods adopted into Buddhism and guardian kings, with smaller figures in niches above. The quality of the carving, especially the calm face and the drapery of the main figure, has made Seokguram one of the most admired works of Buddhist sculpture in Asia.

Key people

• Kim Daeseong (died 774): Silla aristocrat and chief minister credited with conceiving and funding both monuments.
• King Gyeongdeok (reigned 742–765): ruler in whose reign the work began, a period of strong royal government and Buddhist patronage.
• King Hyegong (reigned 765–780): king under whom the court completed the project after Kim’s death.

Later history and restoration

After Silla fell in 935, Bulguksa remained an active temple under the Goryeo and Joseon dynasties. During the Japanese invasions of 1592–1598 its wooden halls were burned, while the stone terraces, stairs and pagodas survived. The buildings were partly restored in the following centuries but had decayed badly by the early twentieth century.

Seokguram was largely forgotten by outsiders until the Japanese colonial period. Between 1913 and 1915 the colonial authorities dismantled and rebuilt it, using concrete that later trapped moisture and damaged the stone. A further restoration in the 1960s added a wooden front building and, later, a glass screen that keeps visitors out of the rotunda and allows the climate to be controlled.

Bulguksa itself was rebuilt on a large scale between 1969 and 1973, when many of its halls and corridors were reconstructed. During repair work in 1966 a printed scroll of the Great Dharani Sutra of Immaculate and Pure Light was found inside Seokgatap. Printed from woodblocks before the pagoda was sealed around 751, it is among the oldest known printed texts.

Myths and facts

A popular claim holds that the main Buddha of Seokguram faces exactly towards the sunrise at the winter solstice, or towards the underwater tomb of King Munmu off the east coast. The grotto does face roughly east towards the sea, but precise alignments are debated among scholars and are not recorded in any Silla source.

It is also often said that Bulguksa as seen today is entirely eighth-century. In fact only the stonework is original; the wooden halls are reconstructions.

Timeline

• 528: Traditional date for an earlier temple on the Bulguksa site under King Beopheung.
• 751: Kim Daeseong begins building Bulguksa and Seokguram.
• 774: Kim Daeseong dies; the Silla court completes the monuments.
• 1593: Bulguksa’s wooden halls are burned during the Japanese invasions.
• 1913–1915: Seokguram is dismantled and rebuilt under Japanese colonial rule.
• 1966: A printed dharani sutra is found inside Seokgatap.
• 1969–1973: Major reconstruction of Bulguksa.
• 1995: UNESCO inscribes Seokguram Grotto and Bulguksa Temple as a World Heritage Site.

Why it matters

Bulguksa and Seokguram show Unified Silla at its most confident: a kingdom able to adapt Indian and Chinese Buddhist models into a distinctive Korean art of stone. They remain among the most visited monuments in Korea and are central to how Koreans see their early cultural heritage, much as Horyu-ji is for Japan.