Yeoju, Part 2: Shilleuksa, Sculpure Garden, and King Sejong's Tomb

Alright. Nana and I have been sitting on these pics for well over a month now, and there's really no good excuse for us not having them up. So here they are, without further ado.

[PART ONE: SHILLEUKSA]

After Queen Min's Tomb, the second stop on our Royal Asiatic Society tour of Yeoju, a small town on the South Han River, was Shilleuksa, Korea's only riverside temple. Shilleuksa packs a bunch of historical oddities into its fairly small grounds, including two freakishly old trees, one of which, a 500-year-old juniper, you can see below.

The first temple building we contemplated during our visit was an odd little shrine to the Buddhist judgment of souls, personified by this cast of colorful characters (yes, the guy on the left has a book on his head--kind of a St. Peter, sans podium):

Those, by the way, are only about a third of the figures in the shrine. For instance, seated next to the aforementioned chap with the very flat head is this cheerful old fellow who holds a record of lovers' infidelities and by all indications gets a real kick out of his work. And at the doors of the shrine, of course, lurk the obligatory temple guardians, one of whom looked a bit like a cross between my grandfather and the Notre Dame leprechaun.

Meanwhile, his compatriot threatened to pounce upon our unsuspecting guide.From this first shrine, we moved on to the parts of the temple with actual historical significance. The building below is Josadong, the oldest building at Shilleuksa (built sometime shortly after 1405), and home to the memorial portraits of three revered fourteenth-century monks (whose cremated remains are interred on the hillside above).


[HISTORY ADVISORY: Do not read the following while operating heavy machinery. Card-carrying dorks excepted, of course.]

The three monks memorialized at Josadong were pretty fascinating people. (Thanks, Wikipedia!)

1) Muhak was an advisor to King Taejo, founder of the Joseon Dynasty. Muhak's skills as a geomancer likely contributed to King Taejo's decision to move the capital of Joseon to Seoul;

2) Jigong (aka Dhyanabhadr) was an Indian monk who served at Shilleuksa and had his remains moved here after he died in China;

and 3) Naong was a Zen master who popularized chanting as a mediation technique. Naong's remains are interred in the impressive sari-budo immediately below, and he was purportedly responsible for planting the 600-year-old ginkgo tree (not pictured) by the river on the temple grounds.

[/END HISTORY. I mean, /HISTORY LESSON. History isn't over, by any means.]

Two things you notice quickly about Buddhist architecture: The folks have a sense of humor, and these folks have their priorities straight.
These guardians are painted on the doors to the mess hall. Clearly, it was important to make them fearful enough to scare any intruders away from the food. Cool fact: Traditionally, the guardian with the open mouth marks the door that's left unlatched.

Much spookier, in my opinion, is this chimney (conscientiously constructed of broken roof tiles) that really, really looks like some kind of homicidal marshmallow man blankly scanning the horizon for victims.

(Edit by Nana: It's an owl, fool. Which is intentional).

Anyway, back to Shilleuksa's many historical oddities. Below you can see a side view of the main temple building, illustrating the peculiar brickwork on the eaves.Even stranger, this close-up shows a highly-stylized face, the likes of which (according to our guide) doesn't exist anywhere else in Korea. One possible explanation for the face has to do with Shilleuksa's rededication in 1469 as a prayer sanctuary for King Sejong's Tomb (for more info, see below). The figure above faces directly towards the tomb, which is over some hills a few kilometers away.

Oddity two: a very rare brick pagoda . . .. . . overlooking the scenic South Han.
[PART TWO: SCULPTURE GARDEN]

Our next stop was a giant traditional sculpture garden put together by a local artist designated (how cool is this?) as a living cultural treasure by the South Korean government. Unfortunately, I don't have too much information about the artist or his work--this stop was spur-of-the-moment, when we found out that a local museum we were going to visit was closed.

However, there were . . .

PUPPIES!!!! Which totally made our day.

Oh, yes, and lots of cool art. (The artist specializes in woodcarving.)
That is, woodcarving and ginormous drums.

[PART THREE: KING SEJONG'S TOMB]

The final stop on our Yeoju tour was King Sejong's tomb, which, as you can see below, is tremendously un-photogenic.
The approach to the tomb, though, was really cool. What you see above actually sits atop another man-made earthen dome at the head of a small, partly-cleared valley dotted with twisted pine trees and surrounded by woods.

Plus, the tomb had a bunch of stone rams mooning the burial mound. Of course, they're actually supposed to be standing guard, but with that wall there, what does it look like to you?
Also, cool view:
The real highlight of King Sejong's Tomb, however, was the museum. As you may have already picked up, King Sejong was the guy who invented (or commissioned, depending on whom you ask) Hangeul, the brilliant Korean writing system, among other very useful but unfortunately rather boring things. The coolest invention of King Sejong's, however, might be the giant set of pitched stone blocks. (Think giant marimba, but upright, and with granite keys and huge hammers instead of mallets.) Totally cool.

So! That wraps up our Yeoju trip--just in time for us to accrue more photos (hopefully) on another Royal Asiatic Society trip in the next couple of weeks.