Yakcheonsa

Quick facts

Address

293-28 Ieodo-ro, Seogwipo-si, Jeju

About this place

Yakcheonsa stands in Daepo-dong, Seogwipo. The temple takes its name from a spring that rises from spring through autumn and a pond of medicinal water that runs in every season. Long before any serious building began, there was good spring water here called Saemi, and neighbours are said to have drunk it and recovered from their illnesses. The name Yakcheonsa means the temple where medicinal water flows, and uses the characters for medicine and for spring. Building work grew greatly under Hyein, who arrived as abbot in 1981, and the temple became widely known when the Daejeokgwangjeon was completed in 1996. That hall stands 29 metres high, a concrete building in the Buddhist architectural manner of the early Joseon period, its one basement and five upper floors run together as a single open volume.

Origin and history

Long before any serious building began, there was good spring water on this ground, called Saemi. Neighbours are said to have drunk this water and recovered from their illnesses.

The temple takes its name from a spring that rises from spring through autumn and a pond of medicinal water that runs in every season. Yakcheonsa means the temple where medicinal water flows, and it uses the character for medicine and the character for spring.

Building work grew greatly under Hyein, who arrived as abbot in 1981, and the temple became widely known when the Daejeokgwangjeon was completed in 1996. That hall stands 29 metres high, a concrete building in the Buddhist architectural manner of the early Joseon period, its one basement and five upper floors run together as a single open volume.

What it is locally associated with

• Power spotHealth & Healing

  The spring called Saemi

  Good spring water rose on this ground long before the building began, and neighbours are said to have drunk it and recovered from illness.

  folk tradition

• Origin

  Medicine, and spring

  The name Yakcheonsa means the temple where medicinal water flows, and takes those two characters directly.

  documented history

• What people do here

  A hall of 29 metres

  The Daejeokgwangjeon, completed in 1996, is a concrete building in early-Joseon manner with one basement and five floors run as a single volume.

  documented history

This temple explains a name that was here before it. Water called Saemi was rising on this ground long before anything was built, and people nearby are said to have drunk it and got better. The characters for medicine and spring were taken as the name in order to point at that water. The building took the water’s name; the water did not take the building’s.

It is also the newest thing among this site’s Jeju entries. Beophwasa on the same island is a Goryeo temple site, Sancheondan is an altar of 1470, and the village shrines are of an age nobody counts. Here an abbot arrived in 1981 and a great hall went up in 1996.

The make of that hall is on the record too. Twenty-nine metres high, concrete, in the Buddhist architectural manner of the early Joseon, with one basement and five floors opened into a single volume. An old idiom and a modern material in one building.

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. 약천사 — 비짓제주 (제주관광공사) (accessed 2026-08-16)