Mihwangsa, Dalmasan

Quick facts

Address

Mihwangsa-gil, Songji-myeon, Haenam-gun, Jeollanam-do

About this place

Mihwangsa stands on Dalmasan in Songji-myeon, Haenam-gun, Jeollanam-do. Uijo founded it in 749. By the founding account, ten thousand Buddha images were loaded on a boat and taken to Geumgangsan as a mountain fit to hold them, but so many temples already stood there that no place could be found to enshrine them; on the way back the boat stopped here, knowing this to be the ground it had a bond with. The next day, as the scriptures and images were carried on an ox, a temple called Tonggyosa was founded where the ox bellowed and lay down and rose again, and Mihwangsa was built where it stopped for the last time. The name is said to take the character for beautiful because the ox’s cry was exceedingly beautiful, and the character for yellow to stand for the colour of the golden figures.

Origin and history

Uijo founded Mihwangsa in 749.

The founding account runs as follows. Ten thousand Buddha images were loaded on a boat and taken to Geumgangsan as a mountain fit to hold them, but so many temples already stood there that no place could be found to enshrine them. On the way back the boat stopped here, knowing this to be the ground it had a bond with.

The next day, as the scriptures and images were carried on an ox, Tonggyosa was founded where the ox bellowed and lay down and rose again, and Mihwangsa was built where it stopped for the last time.

The name is said to take the character for beautiful because the ox’s cry was exceedingly beautiful, and the character for yellow to stand for the colour of the golden figures.

What it is locally associated with

• Origin

  A boat turned back from Geumgangsan

  Ten thousand Buddhas were taken to Geumgangsan, but so many temples already stood there that no place could be found; on the way back the boat stopped here, knowing this to be the ground it had a bond with.

  folk tradition

• Origin

  Two sites chosen by an ox

  Tonggyosa was founded where the ox bellowed and lay down and rose again, and Mihwangsa where it stopped for the last time.

  folk tradition

• Origin

  A cry and a colour

  The name takes the character for beautiful because the ox’s cry was exceedingly beautiful, and the character for yellow for the colour of the golden figures.

  folk tradition

What arrived at this temple had been going somewhere else. A boat carrying ten thousand Buddhas went to Geumgangsan, found so many temples already standing that there was nowhere to enshrine them, and on the way back stopped here, knowing this to be ground it had a bond with. Being turned away at the destination is where this temple begins.

The site was chosen by an animal rather than a person. As the scriptures and images travelled on an ox, Tonggyosa went up where the ox bellowed and lay down and rose, and Mihwangsa went up where it stopped for the last time. Two temples were placed by an ox’s walking.

The name comes from that ox as well. The character for beautiful was taken because its cry was exceedingly beautiful, and the character for yellow to stand for the colour of the golden images. One sound and one colour make the two characters of the name.

An account of failing to find a site at Geumgangsan turns up at Ssanggyesa in Hadong too, where Sambeop went all over Hallasan and Geumgangsan without success before finding his ground on Jirisan. No record joins the two, so nothing more is said here than that they resemble each other.

Related guides

• How to visit a Korean templeHands together and hands folded, how the bows work, and what to do at the threshold of a hall. Starting with what is different from visiting a Japanese shrine.
• The small hall behind the main one — sansingak and samseonggakUphill from the main hall of a Korean temple stands a smaller one, and inside it an old man with a tiger. This is where the indigenous religion sits, inside the Buddhist institution.
• Templestay — a night at a templeA programme that puts you inside a temple’s own timetable for a day or two. What you do, which type to book, and what to be ready for.
• Prayer sites and the one wishThe three great Gwaneum sites, the five relic halls, and the crowds before the entrance exam. Where the saying about one wish comes from, and where the record stops.

Sources

1. 달마산 미황사(達磨山 美黃寺) — 한국민족문화대백과사전 (accessed 2026-08-16)