In A.D. 645, dating back to approximately 1,400 years from now, acolossal wooden edifice with a total height over eighty two meters had emerged at the southern plains of Sorabol, the capital of Silla.
This enormous structure was completed in the fou...
In A.D. 645, dating back to approximately 1,400 years from now, acolossal wooden edifice with a total height over eighty two meters had emerged at the southern plains of Sorabol, the capital of Silla.
This enormous structure was completed in the fourteenth year of Queen Sunduk’s reign(A.D. 645) to avert possible invasions of foreign countries and to concentrate the power of Silla, one of Three States that had the weakest power during the time.
After approximately thirty years this wooden stupa was erected, Silla employed the assistance of the Tang(China) Dynasty to bring unification to the Three States (The fall of Goguryeo in year 668), and this wooden structure had been firmly standing on the Korean Peninsula for nearly seven hundred years, which includes the two hundred seventy years that took Silla in A.D 935 to sacrifice its own country to Wang Geon, the founder of Goryeo, and the four hundred years since Goryeo was founded. Having considered the fact that Seoul Tower had existed for thirty four years since the completion of its construction in 1980, seven hundred years is undoubtedly an enormous long period of time. This amount of time is as equal to a millennium in three hundred years.
There had not been any wooden stupa in the human history built prior to A.D 1,000 that had lasted for half a century (seven hundred years).
Although Hwangyongsa Temple is known to be restored by year 2035, the restoration activity would be as equivalent to erecting a twenty-first century cultural tourism resource under the deceptive pretense of a cultural heritage rather than reconstructing a historical cultural heritage if the case of the construction of the nine-story wooden stupa of Hwangyongsa Temple decides to utilize and apply imperfect and mediocre historical researches under the pretense of restoration.
So as to come to a genuine restoration of the nine-story wooden stupa of Hwangyongsa Temple appropriate to the term so-called ‘restoration’, it can be said that thoughtful consideration and comprehensive researches carried out in detailed phases are essential for a precise and concrete restoration even if it requires a long period of time.
In this respect, this thesis was initially written in hopes of being developed into a reference material for historical researches that may be utilized during the restoration of the nine-story wooden stupa of Hwangyongsa Temple.
Consequently, the thesis had employed comprehensive reviews in reference to those studies of senior scholars associated with the restoration of the nine-story wooden stupa of Hwangyongsa Temple, made supplementary comparative studies on studies and blueprints of Jongnam Kwon and Korea National University of Cultural Heritage and further applied the nine-story gilt bronze stupa excavated at the Site of Pulil Temple in Gaeseong, Democratic People's Republic of Koreaon the basis of art historical researches.
The thesis had suggested the eleventh blueprint for the restoration of the nine-story wooden stupa of Hwangyongsa Templeon top of such foundations and this thesis may possibly become a substantial milestone of the nine-story wooden stupa of Hwangyongsa Temple.
Therefore, by forming a historical description of the fact that group of technical people affiliated with Baekje’s Abiji who had previously built the Mireuk Temple had constructed the wooden stupa of Hwangyongsa Temple for the second time on the basis of reference materials relevant to the wooden stupa of Hwangyongsa Temple, the thesis had analyzed the detail that Baekje’s technologies were involved in the construction of the wooden stupa of Hwangyongsa Temple.
Such findings had revealed the fact that the wooden stupa of Hwangyongsa Templeis a wooden stupa of Baekje. Besides, restorative studiesfor the presumptions on the original form of the wooden stupa of Hwangyongsa Temple had been attempted by making full use of new art historical materials brought from Gaeseong, Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
‘The unification of the Korean people’ is undoubtedly a subject most talked about among Korean people in recent days. A peaceful unification of the South and the North shall be looked forward with the wooden stupa of Hwangyongsa Temple which will be restored once again in the twenty-first century, similar to how Silla had brought unification to the Three States after thirty years since the construction of the wooden stupa of Hwangyongsa Temple. As long as the great wooden stupa of Hwangyongsa Temple can be rebuilt at the center of the former plains of Gyeongju, it will become a concrete foundation for stretching the cultural potential of the Korean people into the world history in the twenty-first century, similar to the Korean people in the past having developed the magnificent Silla culture in East Asia.