Tongdosa Temple

Full transcript

Annyeong, yeoreobun! Yul here. Today's temple has a mystery. Walk into the main hall, look for the big Buddha statue, and... it's not there! Welcome to Tongdosa, in Yangsan.

Let's go back to the seventh century. A Silla monk named Jajang travels to Tang China to study, in 636. According to tradition, he comes home with treasures linked to the Buddha himself: a robe, a begging bowl, a fragment of bone, and sarira, the tiny crystal-like relics left after cremation. In 646, during the reign of Queen Seondeok, he founds Tongdosa to enshrine them.

Now, the twist. The relics rest in a stone platform behind the main hall, the Geumgang Gyedan, or Diamond Altar. So inside the hall, Daeungjeon, there is no statue, just a window looking straight at the altar. Monks still take their precepts in front of this altar today.

That's why Tongdosa is called the Buddha Jewel, one of Korea's Three Jewel Temples. It was badly damaged in the Imjin War of the 1590s and rebuilt in the 1600s, and in 2018 it joined UNESCO's World Heritage list as one of Korea's Sansa, the Buddhist mountain monasteries. Daebak!

Yul's tip! From Busan's Nopo Station, an intercity bus reaches Tongdosa Sinpyeong in about 25 minutes; then stroll the pine forest path. Remove your shoes before entering a hall, keep quiet, step over thresholds, and don't photograph people praying.

The Buddha jewel, check. Next, the jewel of the monks. Kaja!