Artworks

Sŏkkuram cave temple

Artwork · Anonymous · 751–774 · sculpture · Bulguksa

The cave temple on Mount T’oham outside Kyŏngju, built between 751 and 774 by the minister Kim Tae-sŏng, also the builder of Pulguk-sa: a rectangular antechamber leads into a domed chamber of Indian type where a huge granite Buddha sits in the earth-touching gesture, watching over the East Sea, surrounded by forty-one figures in relief — a masterpiece of all Buddhist art. 1 Portal 2000, pp. 73–74, fig. 39. ↩ Literatur Portal 2000: Jane Portal, Korea: Art and Archaeology, London: British Museum Press 2000.