Stone Bodhisattva Statue in Beopjoo-sa Temple.

Beopjoo-sa temple believed to have been built in Shilla dynasty after conquering BaekJae and Goguryeo Kingdom. So there exist relics of Shilla dynasty in unification era. I’d like to introduce stone relics among them.
In this post, I’d like to introduce the Stone Bodhisattva Statue.

It looked very unique stone statue among the relics existing in Korea. It might be said as the unique stone statue in Korea. It was the first time for me to see that kind of stone statue style.

Generally this statue seemed to get strong influence from India. Its thin waist was not common in Korean traditional art. Meanwhile this type was really common in India and Hinduism. You can see lots of statues in this style in Indian Hinduism temple.

The face was eroded, so we could not find out how was its face exactly. But the hairstyle was not similar to that of Korean people. The hair looked like waived as the western people.

There were some relics showing close relationship between Persia or India and Shilla.
Shilla was the last place of the silkroad. So this statue could take the image from Persian or Indian people.
It seemed that there was more possibility that statue belonged to foreign culture.
The patterns in this statue are not similar to the Lotus pattern, the common patterns in Buddhist statues.

I was so curious why the statue hold the bowl over its head. What does the bowl mean ?
This statue had the mystery and secret of 2000 years ago.

Below are the parts of Bodhisattva statue.