Samhwasa Temple, Donghae, South Korea

Samhwasa Temple, Donghae, South Korea

584, Samhwa-ro, Donghae-si, Gangwon-do, Republic of Korea

Traveling along the eastern coastline of Korea, one encounters a number of celebrated temples along the way. One of them is Samhwasa in Samcheok — a site of exceptional geomantic virtue, and one that deserves to be counted among the finest locations in the country. The temple sits within Mureung Valley on Dutas Mountain, deep in the heart of the Taebaek Mountain Range, the central spine of the Baekdu Daegan. I made my way there by taxi from the Donghae intercity bus terminal, and along the way the driver happened to mention that the temple had not always occupied its present location — it had been relocated from its original site. The reason, he explained, was that in 1979, a cement company had acquired the land where Samhwasa originally stood in order to build a factory, one that would go on to play a significant role in Korea's industrial development; in exchange, a new site was secured deeper within Mureung Valley, and the temple was reestablished there.

This was a rather startling thing to hear before one had even arrived. A temple's location is, in most cases, inseparable from its identity — often more meaningful than the buildings themselves — and yet here was a temple whose entire site had been uprooted to make way for a factory. In circumstances like these, one generally expects that little of cultural heritage value will have survived, and that the new site will almost inevitably fall short of the original. It was a discouraging piece of information, but having come such a long way I pressed on regardless, stepping into the temple grounds despite the cold. What I found was an unexpected reversal. The new location of Samhwasa was considerably better than I had anticipated. Both the placement of the main halls and the setting within Mureung Valley were remarkably well chosen, producing a landscape of surprising beauty.

Given that the site was a newly established one, there were few significant cultural artifacts remaining — only two items of note: the three-story stone pagoda before the main hall, designated Treasure No. 1277, and the seated iron Rocana Buddha, designated Treasure No. 1292. Yet the atmosphere of the place carried a weight of history that matched any temple of long standing. Samhwasa is indeed a temple whose founding reaches back to the Silla period, making it a site of over a thousand years. The present location may not be the original ground on which it stood, but it feels as though whoever chose the new site found terrain worthy of a thousand-year temple. The newly constructed halls were, inevitably, rather too shiny and bright for my taste — the kind of visual glare that tends to sit uneasily with a sensibility attuned to older things — but the position itself earned my unreserved admiration. Set against a backdrop of sheer cliff faces and soaring peaks that form a natural folding screen around the temple, with the waters of Mureung Valley curling around to one side and flowing downward, the whole composition is one of rare harmony.

Spread out before Samhwasa is the crowning glory of Mureung Valley: an enormous expanse of flat granite. Known as the Mureung Bansok, this great sheet of rock covers some five hundred square meters, and across its surface are carved the names and verses of countless poets and scholars who visited over the centuries — among them Maewoldang Kim Siseup, whom we have met before at Muryangsa. Most remarkable of all is a twelve-character inscription in cursive script left by Yang Sa-eon, pen name Bongrae, one of the four great calligraphers of the early Joseon period. A contemporary of Han Seokbong and widely considered to have had no equal in the cursive style, Yang Sa-eon is a name that commands the deepest respect among those who know Korean calligraphy — and to encounter his hand in a place like this, engraved into living rock in a mountain valley, is a genuinely unexpected pleasure.

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