Having been to many Korean temples over the years, I can still recall the feeling of great interest I had when I first encountered the brightly colored paintings on their walls. These paintings, I found, have human-like figures, strange creatures or animals in them. I always wondered what meanings they had, for surely they must have some meaning if they adorn the walls of a spiritual place.
“Our temple's interesting wall painting stories”
Sometime in 2011, I bought a Korean book called “재미있는 우리 사찰의 벽화 이야기” or “Our temple’s interesting wall painting stories” through which I had hoped to learn about Korean temple wall paintings. It has many short stories about a good number of the paintings one finds at temples and I am very pleased to have bought it.
This post will begin a series of posts in which I will attempt to translate the stories into English so that you too can have a deeper understanding of what you see at temples. I am not 100% bilingual, not even close. So please forgive me if I make mistakes as I proceed with this little project. All posts of this nature will be filed under the Buddhism category of this blog.
Photos from this post were taken at Jogyesa Temple in Seoul.
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The Life Work of Buddha
The Buddha is a historical person who lived with us in this world and experienced the four pains of the world. And he is in fact the founder of Buddhism. Furthermore, there are many stories about him and his teachings which are boundlessly big and wide. Accordingly, even on temples’ walls, his image is prominent.
Title: Evil spirits interrupting Buddha's attainment of Great Wisdom
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Evil spirits interrupting Buddha’s attainment of Great Wisdom
The prince was sitting under a sacred fig tree absorbed in deep reflection of his thoughts, trying to clear away everything in order to see the truth.
At long last, the moment the Buddha was about to achieve enlightenment was upon him. It was a reason for the whole world to be happy and celebrate.
Upper detail. That's what you call a double D distraction.
However, the evil spirit Pasun (파순), trying to interrupt Buddha’s attainment of Great Wisdom, thought that he had to confuse the prince’s mind. So he ordered his evil spirit soldiers to attack the prince under the sacred fig tree.
However, the prince, like a huge mountain rock, rejected the evil spirit soldiers without budging.
Lower detail. The evil henchmen's true image is seen in the mirrors.
Pasun’s handiwork to interrupt failed so he ordered his henchmen to turn into beautiful women and sent them next to the prince’s side so they could sing songs and dance in all sorts of flirtatious ways.
However, that kind of attempt likewise failed and in the end the prince achieved enlightenment and became a Buddha. And so he became the eternal teacher of mankind.
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