In this posting, I’d like to introduce the relics of Baekjae Dynasty. What I’d like to visit is a 5 story stone pagoda in Booyeo city where was the last capital of Baekjae Dynasty.
It is believed the place where the stone pagoda was located in was Buddhist temple in the name of Jeongleem-sa.
The style and the form of the pagoda might’ve gave me some kinds of imagination on the culture of BakJae Kingdom.
It was very hot and sunny day when I dropped by the pagoda.
At the entrance to the pagoda, there was a small pond. Looking into that pond, there were small fishes following me for something to eat.
Tourists were throwing the pieces of bread.
The stone pagoda was really great. It seemed like that this pagoda was made after the wooden pagoda.
The style of this stone pagoda showed us that the first pagodas had been made up with the wooden parts prior to the stone pagodas.
The end of the roofs in every story was slightly raised upward. Scholars told that was the one of the evidence that the stone pagoda was evolved from the wooden pagoda.
It seemed that the craft of mason’s was developed than before.
The masons seemed to try to reproduce the wooden pagoda with the stone.
The size of the stone pagoda also showed that it was influenced by the wooden pagoda.
The stone pagoda in Jeongleem-sa temple and the stone 3 story pagoda in Bulkook-sa temple in Shilla dynasty seemed worth while to compare to each other.
It seemed that the stone pagoda(Seokga tap) in Bukook-sa temple seemed to be made lately than the 5 story stone pagoda in Buyoe city.
One thing interesting for me was the ratio of the width of the pagoda in BaekJae dynasty. It seemed wider than that of other pagodas in late era.
The width of the pagoda looked very similar to the Architectures of BaekJae Kingdome.
We could not see the architectures of BaekJae dynasty nowadays, but the museum of Buyeo was built 금 the style of BaekaJae dynasty architecture.
It means that the stone 5 story pagoda in Jeongleem-sa place could be considered as the original model of the BaekJae Architecture.