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By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter
Some 450 relics from the 15th to 17th centuries were discovered in a wooden Buddhist statue at Songgwangsa Temple in Suncheon, South Jeolla Province, Monday.
The Cultural Heritage Administration said that a team found the storage of precious objects such as scriptures and relics inside the seated Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva sculpture during the process of reapplying gilding to the statue.
Various Buddhist scriptures were discovered, including ``Gyojang,'' translated books of Buddhist scriptures published by Dagak Guksa Uicheon, a Buddhist monk in the 11th century. The books are the xylographic prints of the monk's translations republished during the reign of King Sejo in 1462.
``The scriptures are the only ones existing today. They are very precious resources for the Buddhist culture, bibliography and printing,'' the administration said.
Among the relics, there are two garments ― a man's jacket (``jeogori'') and a woman's waistcoat (``baeja''), as well as 11 fabric works weaved from silk, ramie and cotton, and are believed to be the oldest ones of their kind remaining today.
Some of the scriptures were re-placed inside the statue and other relics were housed in the temple's museum.
chungay@koreatimes.co.kr |
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경찰, 이태원 등 외국인 밀집지역 특별관리
