Jajang (慈藏, 590–658)
The Silla monk who brought relics of the Buddha back from Tang China.
Jajang was a Silla monk who travelled to Tang China in 636. He is said to have received relics of the Buddha, including a cranial fragment and a tooth, from Mañjuśrī beside Taehwa Pond on Wutai Shan, and to have returned in 645. The relic halls of Korea — buildings that hold no buddha image because the relics themselves are the object of devotion — are traced to him, among them the one on the middle terrace of Odaesan, where he is said to have enshrined the cranial relic beneath it.
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Places in this collection
TempleTongdosa
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The first of the five relic sanctuaries, whose main hall enshrines no buddha because it faces the relics behind it.
TempleMagoksa
A thousand-year-old temple on Taehwasan said to have been founded by Jajang, where two main halls stand one behind the other up the slope.
TempleWoljeongsa, Odaesan
Head temple of the fourth Jogye district, begun where its founder tried to see Manjushri in the flesh and did not.
TempleSinheungsa, Seoraksan
A temple that changed its name three times, and moved its ground each time it did.
TempleBaekdamsa, Seoraksan
Built where a count of the pools from Cheongbong down to the temple came to a hundred, and named for that number.
TempleJeongamsa
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A relic sanctuary where Jajang is said to have enshrined the Buddha’s skull bone, a tooth and a hundred relics, with a National Treasure stupa on the slope behind.
TempleBongjeongam
- Protection & Safety
A hermitage on Sosecheongbong in Seoraksan, one of the five relic sanctuaries, holding relics Jajang is said to have brought back.
TempleManggyeongsa, Taebaeksan
Built to house a stone image of Manjushri that its founder came here because he had heard it had appeared.
TempleJeongmyeol-bogung, Odaesan
- Protection & Safety
A relic hall on the middle terrace of Odaesan with no buddha image inside, because the Buddha’s own relics are enshrined there.