In front of Taeung-Jon Hall

By passing beyond the pagodas and into the hall, the worshipper symbolically reaches Nirvana.  Each step is representative of the journey the soul must take.  As can be seen, the main hall, Taeung-Jon Hall, was built using the Tap'o style (Note the brackets that are situated between the columns).  This style was popular with Buddhists as a symbolic representation of the complexity of the cosmos.  This particular hall measures 53 feet by 47 feet.

 The Haengnaeng corridors terminate just beyond Taeung-Jon at Musol-Jon Hall, the largest of the buildings on the site.  This meditation hall is 112 feet long.  According to a record from King Mun-mu's time, this building originally had thirty-two rooms.  If so, this marks the site of an earlier temple.

Drum hall photograph courtesy of 
University of Idaho Media Desk

In addition to Pul-guk-sa Temple, it should be noted that there is another extremely important shrine nearby:  Sokkuram Grotto, a man-made shrine in Mt. Tohamsen.  Sokkuram Grotto also owes its existence to Kim Tae-Song, who finished the rock-hewn grotto sometime after finishing with Pul-guk-sa Temple.  There is some confusion over why the grotto was actually built:  according to some sources, it was a memorial to Kim Tae-Sung's parents.  However, it's proximity to King Munmu's tomb leads some scholars to believe that it was built as a spiritual protection from the Japanese:  King Munmu was cremated and cast into the sea to become a sea dragon that would protect the kingdom from the east.  As the grotto's entrance is situated to look east out over the East Sea, it is possible that the Silla Kings built Sokkuram so that the Buddha would offer protection from invasion.

While it is similar to carved-caves in both India and China, this Silla-era cave-temple is utterly unique in Korea.  There were earlier rock-hewn caves in Korea, but they were much cruder.