The Bell has had very important meaning in Buddhism. They has stoke the bell in Buddhist temple to awake everything from the darkness and to give a peace and a rest for everything.
The Bell was as same as the words of Buddha to everything existed in the world.
In this point, the bell between Christianity and Buddhism is quite different.
The most important relic on the ground of Nation Museum in Gyeong Ju was a Seongdeokdaewang singing which could be translated in ‘the Bell of King Seongdeok the great.
I could see the Bell in the corner of the ground. I couldn't understand why they displayed the Bell in the corner of the Museum.
In my opinion, the Bell is the core of Shilla dynasty relics.
This bell was made in 771 AD in memory of King Seongdeok in Shilla dynasty after the unification of Korean peninsular.
This bell is the biggest and the heaviest in Korea.
(The height of 3.75 m, the width of the mouth of 2.27m, the thickness of 11-25 cm and the weight of 18.9 ton)
It was amazing this size of bronze bell could have lasted for more than 13 centuries.
The more amazing thing is the bell is still working normally in these days.
The really awesome thing is the sound of this bell is unbelievably beautiful. It has the longest sound pulse among the Bells in the world. If you strike once this bell, the sound can continue for several minutes due to the resonance of the bell.
The sound spreads like a thick fog into our chest and mind when you hear this sound.
When I was an elementary school pupil, I could hear the sound of striking this bell. Many scientists had studied the phenomenon of the mysterious sound, but they failed to find out the mysterious sound.
Now we could not strike the bell anymore to preserve the bell longer.
Besides the mysterious sound, the structure and the patterns were unique and famous for it’s beauty.
There is a pipe of the sound on the head of the bell. This sound pipe is unique structure in Korean bell. The mysterious resonance was believed to be made by the sound pipe.
There are lots of small round projecting parts which are called as nipple of the bell in four directions.
I don’t know the reason why they named those structure the nipples.
But in my guess, the nipples of bell is a metaphorical expression of that the sound of the bell is the milk of life.
The one of the impressive design is an angel pattern on the Bell.
The name of the pattern is ‘Bi Cheon Sang’ which means ‘flying angel statue’
The lower part was decorated with various patterns.
The technic of carving this delicate pattern on the surface of the bell would be not easy in these days. But they made this delicate pattern1300 years ago.
I heard It is not easy to reproduce the bell even today.
Technic seemed to be not always progressive.