When I passed through a last gate to the temple, there were strange looking small traditional building. Those small buildings made me curious.
Even though I have looked over more than 100 temples in Korea, it was the first time for me to look at those buildings.
As I got to there closer, the introductory standing board made me surprise.
The purpose of those buildings was cleaning bodies when people die.
As you know, Buddhists have been cremating when people die.
Before cremating, they had been cleaning bodies in this building.
The left building was for cleaning woman’s body. It’s name was “Sae Wol Dang” meaning the house of cleaning moon. They used the moon as a metaphor for woman’s body.
This buildings had been made in 19 century according to the board.
Near the last gate and at the end of the road, there was a large rock on which the names were carved.
Maybe they tried their names to be remembered forever.
Why did they carve their names near the building of cleaning bodies ?
People whose names were carved in the rock were dead with the hope of not forgotten.
But nobody remember their name now.
I was standing near those architectures in a while thinking the meaning of human life.