Crooked Pillars, Irony or Science ?

20171020

Ssang Gyeo Sa was very special on the decoration and ornament inside of the Daw Woong Jean, main praying room for Buddha.

Especially the pillars of the main building were impressive. The pillars were bent and crooked. It was amazing to me how these crooked pillars could sustain the weight of the roof. The roof of the traditional building was very heavy. Normally it looked like that it would be impossible to hold up the roof with these crooked pillars for several hundred years.

I was wondered that there was any enigma which couldn’t be explained in science.

Was there any irony that the crooked pillars could receive the weight of the roof better than straight pillars ?

Let’s see the pillars at first

Even main pillars of this building were crooked.
But this zigzag pillars made me feel natural beauty.

The crossbeam of this building was so marvelous for me.
The crossbeam of traditional Korean architectures was bent in many cases.
So bent crossbeam was not surprising, but the dragons above the crossbeam was exceptional.
I never had seen this kind of dragons in other temples.

The dragon was described realistically. The face of dragon was expressed with humor and wit.

It seemed that the dragons on the sky was looking down and protecting people who was praying in the room.

Last thing I thought special in this room was the patterns of ceiling.
Usually the patterns of ceiling were the lotus. The pattern of this temple was also the lotus.
But style was different from others.

These differences looked very unique compare to other temple.
It looks like minor, but this small differences implied so many things in development of Buddhist Art.