The Divine Bell of King Seongdeok: the largest surviving bell, in Gyeongju

This bell spans three reigns.

King Gyeongdeok sought to cast a bell to proclaim widely the merit of his father King Seongdeok, but it was completed in 771, in the reign of King Hyegong.

The man honoured is the grandfather, the man who began it the father, the man who finished it the son. Today the bell hangs in a pavilion in the grounds of Gyeongju National Museum, where you can walk all the way round it.

At a glance

Completed 771
Begun under King Gyeongdeok and finished under King Hyegong. Its date of manufacture is certain.
830 characters
A preface of 630 and a verse of 200. As a bell inscription it is the earliest of its kind.
Four apsaras
Set facing each other in pairs, kneeling on lotus seats in an attitude of offering.
Moved here in 1915
It came to the museum together with its pavilion from Bonghwangdae, and moved again when the museum was rebuilt.

The name of the man who wrote it survives in two versions

Before thinking about the sound, look at the text: the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture describes the inscription in detail, down to its authorship.

The inscription is the earliest of its kind, and outstanding as prose as well. It consists of a preface of 630 characters and a verse of 200.

And then this.

The author is given as Kim Pil-gye, or as Kim Pil-o, a hallimrang geupchan under King Hyegong, but the characters are worn and it is not clear which.

The man who left 830 characters lost two of his own. Given that this is an object made for remembering, the irony runs fairly deep: the bronze poured to keep King Seongdeok's merit forever did not manage to keep the name of the man who wrote it down.

The subject of the preface is explicit. It is a prayer that the merit of King Seongdeok should flow out through the sound of the bell, widely and forever, to the people of the country, so that peace and their wellbeing might continue.

The mouth of the bell is not round

Look at the lower edge in the photograph. It is not a circle.

The lower band is unusual in that the mouth of the bell forms an eight-lobed outline, and a large lotus resembling a strike-plate is set at each lobe.

So the mouth waves in eight, with one large lotus at every corner of the wave. Once you have seen that rhythm you keep finding it as you walk round.

The upper structure counts out too. Four panels below the upper band each contain nine lotus bosses in relief. And two apsaras face each other on the body, with two eight-petalled lotus strike-plates set alternately between them.

Uncommon on a Silla bell: the writing is on the body

One thing separates this bell from Sangwonsa bell, the other representative Unified Silla bell.

Unlike Sangwonsa bell, whose inscription is set on the crown plate at the very top, this bell carries a long inscription in relief on the body, which is not commonly seen on Silla bells.

That difference changes how you look at it. Writing on a crown plate cannot be read from below; writing on the body sits at standing height. The rectangular panels visible between the apsaras in the photograph are it.

The apsaras themselves are highly regarded. The four figures, facing each other in pairs, kneel on lotus seats in an attitude of offering, with lotus flowers billowing round them like cloud and their robes and jewellery streaming upward. The encyclopedia calls this the representative carving of the Korean apsara.

The bell has moved four times

Where it now stands in the grounds of Gyeongju National Museum is not where it started. The moves are on record.

It hung at Bongdeoksa.
After that temple was abandoned to flood damage it was moved to Yeongmyosa.
A bell pavilion was then built at Bonghwangdae to protect it.
In August 1915 it was moved to the museum together with the pavilion, and when Gyeongju National Museum was rebuilt on a new site the bell moved to the present grounds.

The step between 3 and 4 is the striking one. What moved was not only the bell but the pavilion with it. The roof sheltering the bell in the photograph is not that structure, but the habit of treating this bell as one object together with a building goes back a century.

Its two other names come out of the same history. It is also called the Bongdeoksa bell and the Emille bell. The first is the name of the temple where it first hung.

Going to see it

The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture gives its location as 186 Iljeong-ro, Gyeongju, Gyeongju National Museum. The Korea Heritage Service registry names the same museum as the administering body.

Gallery rotations matter less here than for the tomb treasures indoors. The bell hangs not in a gallery case but in a pavilion in the museum grounds, and it is hard to move in any event: it is the largest bell surviving in Korea. Work around the pavilion or conservation treatment can still restrict access, so if you are making the trip for the bell alone, check the museum notices once.

Museum hours and directions are kept on the Gyeongju National Museum place page, so check them before you go.

What to look for

Look at the floor beneath the bell: a round pit is sunk into it. Then walk the rim once. It waves in eight, with a large lotus at each corner of the wave.

Then stop at the rectangular text panel between the apsaras. Six hundred and thirty characters, then two hundred. The man who composed them may have been Kim Pil-gye or Kim Pil-o; the characters are too worn to say.

Where to go next

The Silla tomb treasures administered by the same museum are in the article on Cheonmachong and the article on Geumgwanchong; Unified Silla Buddhism is covered in its own article.