Why So Many Entrances are needed to the Soo Deok Sa temple.

20171025

Each temple has it’s specific appearance. In Soo Deok Sa temple, I saw it’s characteristics at the entrance. There were four entrances in Soo Deck Sa. I don’t know why so many entrances are needed in the Temple.

Anyway let me show you these entrances in order.

What I saw first was below.

It was so big, so I thought the pillars of the entrance not wooden.
4 pillars of this entrance were made with wood. It was wonder where they got such a big wood.
Front board was written in Korean.

It seemed that Many foreigners thought Korean language and Chinese language had same origin.

But Korean and Chinese are quiet different.
Korean alphabet was as same as English alphabet.
Korean language is a phonogram, but Chinese is an ideogram.

Second entrance was little bit smaller than the first.
But it’s pillar was made up of a stone.
It seemed that the second entrance was made earlier than the first.
The front board was written in Chinese letters.

There was written as this temple is the first Zen temple in Eastern country.
As I wrote before, this temple was new starting point of Zen training in Korea in 19 century.

Zen training in Korea was set up in 19 century, and it was totally different than before.
It was far beyond my English ability to describe Korean style Zen Training which was set up in 19 century by the great master mont of Gyeong Heo.

I hope to explain about in English sooner.

The Third entrance was the most unique in this temple. It was Geum Ghang Moon.

It means that Diamond strength gate.
Here meaning of Geum Ghang is the strong guard god protecting Buddhist world.
There were two Guem Ghang guard gods standing in each side of the entrance.