Forwarded from the Korean
Studies
It being the summer, I have
brought together a few snippets allowing myself (and others) to visit the
Buddhist sites of North Korea while sitting at home.
The main page http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/DiamondMountainTemples.html
lists the main temples and hermitages of the Diamond Mountains, with a
sample photo from the time when those temples still existed. Each temple also
has a linked page containing additional photos, both old and recent, trawled
from the Internet. There are also links to the accounts of journeys to the
Diamond Mountains by George Curzon (1892), Isabella Bird Bishop (1894), James
Gale (1917) and Charles Hunt with Bishop Trollope (1923). Inevitably, James
Gale appended translations of Korean accounts of visits in 1489 and 1603 and of
a laborious climb to the highest summit, Piro-bong, in 1865 which are of some
interest.
In order to dispell sorrow at the total destruction of almost everything there,
I have also compiled a page about other North Korean temples, which mostly
either survived or have been rebuilt http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/NorthKoreanTemples.html
and added another page with additional photos of several, mostly recent. http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/Diamond/NorthKorea/MorePhotosNorthKorea.html
As some much older members of the list might recall, Yujeom-sa temple once had
a strange altar representing 53 Buddhas perched on the roots of a gigantic
tree. I think I have found an Internet resource with about 100 photos of those
53 Buddhas taken from various directions so I have grouped them and put that
online too. http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/Diamond/53Buddhas/53Buddhas.html
I would be glad to hear of additional resources that could be added . . . . I
find that much this information is scattered across the Internet and hard to
find. Images from Japanese -language sources would be very useful . . .
Brother Anthony
President, RAS Korea
