| Title |
The Origin of the Three Image-Hall System |
| Abstract |
Buddhist temple sites of Koguryo employed the system of three image-hall placed around the central pagoda. Application of the three image-hall system was also found in the sites of Paekje and Silla as well as in Japan. We do not know, however, how the three image-hall system was originated. Two hypothesis on this question, suggested a few decades earlier by Japanese scholars; one, the system could have been the development of Koguryo, and the other, it would have been determined by the ancient Chinese ideas of astronomy, do not convince us any more, This paper attempts to establish a new theory that the system, at its biginning stage, must have been modeled after the east-west halls of the contemporary plaace architecture of China, which were placed on each side of the central hall.This new development of two flanking halls, popular during the Six Dynasties, must have been worked as the model for the eastern and western image-hall of the three image-hall system, and this can be traced physically at the newly discovered site of Chongrung-sa of Koguryo. This implies that the three image-hall system would have been initiated not as three image-hall, but as two image-hall at its earlier stage, and later, developed into three image-hall, Limited evidences which demonstrate this process of change can also be found in both literary and archeological evidences. |