The Jijang Jeon Building For The Dead Souls In Naeso-sa And Gaewun-sa Temple.
Unlike Christian church, Buddhist temple was composed of several buildings having specific meanings each.
The main building in the Korean Buddhist temple is ‘Daewung-Jeon’ where is a place for Buddha.
There are several other buildings for Buddha, especially for the future Buddha and the Bodhisattva of Hearing the sound of the world, in Sanskrit Avalokiteshvara. Those buildings seem to have the similar meaning as Daewung-Jeon.
There is a place for the dead souls in Buddhist temple.
The name of that building is Jijang-Jeon.
Jijang is the Bodhisattva to give up being a Buddha until the future Buddha come to this world for the salvation. In Sanskrit, Jijang is Ksitigarbha.
Jijang could be Buddha, but he choose to be a Bodhisattva to save the dead soul in the Hell.
So there is a building for the dead soul in Korean Temple.
As I had posted several times, the ancestors souls were so important in the ancient Korea.
So praying to Jijang Bodhisattva for their ancestors soul is one of the most important thing in the temple, because Jijang Bodhisattva have been taking in charge of judging the dead souls.
And Jijang Bodhisattva makes a decision to send the dead sous to the paradise or to the inferno.
When you look at Jijang Bodhisattva carefully, you can notice Jijang’s eyes look like to penetrate your mind.
His eyes mean that Jijang judges the dead peoples’ sin.
His eye style is same in every temple.
Usually There are 10 kings managing the inferno in the Jijang-Jeon building.
Those 10 kings faces are varied depending on the temples.
Usually the faces of the kings were very strict.
For example, the face of 10 kings in Naeso-sa was expressionless.
But in some case, there are kings' sculptures smiling softly.
The example is the sculptures in Gaewun-sa temple located in Seoul.
At first, let's look at Jijang.
Jijang in Gaewun-sa temple was also serious like as that in Naeso-sa Temple.
But all kings are smiling friendly in Gaewun-sa
They are judging the dead send to the paradise or to the inferno.
If you were Kings in the inferno, do you judge the dead in smile ?
The smile of the Kings in the inferno was a mystery to me, so I have asked the reason of the Kings smile.
But nobody answer to my question.
Do you have any idea about that ?
Am also wondering
I love to see your photos that you've posted a lot of beautiful posts in your post
Wow!! This is so educating and mind blowing. I was raised a christian but I no longer practice Christianity. I've developed some interest lately on spirituality, Buddhism and it's tenets.
I learned something new today about dead souls. This is interesting; I don't know if I understood it well, but can souls who are in hell also be saved?
About the Kings' smile, I don't know. Maybe their judging is based on love.Dead of king judge same here .any body could believe it geartly
.all kings of world somewere lost today.
I love your history lessons :) always so informative. All of the faces in the photos are so expressive that is scary.
Hey, don't I know you? Yeah, you're the girl/guy with the beautiful smile.
So beautiful... ❤
Buddhism has always caught my attention, you are illustrating me quite well, but my curiosity is growing, I would love to know much more about rituals, if to pray they do some specific things, I see that in the temple they are without shoes, that's always true? the truth is that they are stories that I feel connected to, maybe my ancestors take me to investigate and bring me closer to them
Nube photos, especially the first one. I know very little about Buddhism, and the context is much appreciated. It's amazing how many beautiful works of art and architectural wonders are created for triceps religious purposes.