Stone Temple Carvers

The day after going to the Gwangju National Cemetery I went to the nearby Unjusa temple. Legend says that originally the temple had 1000 stone Buddhas, 1000 pagodas, now 23 pagodas and 100s of Buddhas. Two angels (for lack of a better term) descended from heaven and carved all of them in a single night. The last two Buddhas, which are by far the largest, are lying down because the angels didn't have time to have them stand before the sun rose. The other explanation of the temple is that it was a school for stonemasons. There is certainly a lot of variation and experimentation in the styles, sizes, and shapes of the carvings. I spent hours wandering through the trails lined with Buddha statues and walking up hills to see the many pagodas rising from the mist.