Yugeumsa Three-story Stone Pagoda, Yeongdeok

Basic information

Designation

Treasure No.674

Category

Sites & Pagodas

Era

통일신라시대

Designated year

1980

Location

영덕군, 경상북도— 경북 영덕군 병곡면 유금길 213-26 (금곡리)

Coordinates

36.645802, 129.365675

Yugeumsa Temple, built by the monk Jajang in the sixth year of the reign of Queen Seondeok (673), was a temple of considerable size up to the mid Joseon Dynasty. According to an anecdote, a landslide with heavy rainfall destroyed the temple after the head of the temple saw two dragons having sexual intercourse on the way from Bulguksa Temple. He felt uneasy about the unusual scene and before he arrived, the landslide had destroyed the temple. Since reconstruction in the fifth year of King Injo’s reign, the temple has preserved its appearance. It is usual for a pagoda to stand in front of the main prayer hall but this particular one stands at the back yard. It does not seem to have been moved from somewhere else and is assumed to have been erected behind the main prayer hall. As usual, the pagoda consists of a two-story platform and a three-story main section. The bottom and the top platforms have the corner pillars engraved at the corners and the sides, and a two-layer strut holds up the next layer. Assembled into one piece, the roof stone and the core stone form the main part of the pagoda. Every story has a corner-pillar without any particular decoration. A four-layer strut holds up the roof stone. In the finial, round stones piled in a later order do not match with the rest of the pagoda. The pagoda gets proportionately narrower as it goes up and the big platform helps give it stability. The pillar decoration on every forth layer of the platform and the four-layer strut for the roof stone together show that the pagoda was built in the late Silla era.

Location