죽주 장명사지 석불좌상의 복원적 고찰과 고려초기 석불 양식

Abstract

This paper investigates a stone seated Buddha image and a seven-storied pagoda at Jangmyeong temple-site datable to the early Goryeo period. Jangmyeong temple-site is located in Jukjoo area, present-day Anseung, Gyeonggido, which was a major transportation point in the middle of Goryeo, connecting the capital Gaegyeung with the southern parts of Goryeo. Thanks to its geographical position, powerful clans with good financial strength are likely to have flourished and supported local Buddhist temples, which is demonstrated by the many stone pagodas and Buddhist images in Jukjoo. Although the subject stone Buddha image is mostly damaged except for a little of its body and pedestal, its pedestal shows magnificent size with its diameter of 170 cm. The pedestal also shows a short middle part, which was not common in Unified Silla Buddha images. It is assumed that this type of pedestal began to appear in early Goryeo Buddhist sculpture, betraying iconographical influence from the Buddhist art of Northern Song China. The Five-Storied Pagoda, in which as arira set and inscribed stone tablet were enshrined by local officials, lay men and monks of the Jukjoo area under the inscription of the fifteenth year of Tonghwa(997A.D.) is one of the five-storied pagodas which were prevalentin the early Goryeo period. The stone seated Buddha images, mostly broken in its face and body, which has been conceptually restored by comparison with contemporary stone seated Buddha images of the early Goryeo period, which normally have a warm, benign, and feminine face and round shoulder, flat body form, was most likely worshipped not only by local Jukjoo people but also by aristocrats and merchants traveling and stopping by Jukjoo from the early Goryeo period until Jangmyeong temple collapsed.