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Image of the Buddha. Courtesy of Doug Cook.
Likewise, if one were to visit Sokkuram Grotto located high in the mountains of Korea surrounding the great Kyongju plain, he would witness the granite image of Sokgamoni, the grandest Buddha in all of Asia, whose presence reflects sublime beauty as he sits gazing out over the East Sea and farther on toward the rising sun and Japan. The illustrious history of this sacred site reaches back to the year AD 751 when King Gyeongdeok commissioned Prime Minister Kim Taesong, a member of the royal family, to supervise the construction of an enduring monument to the Buddhist faith. After painstaking research, he chose a site of spiritual significance high atop Mount Tohamsan situated in the heart of the Sillian capital.4 Here, at the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, not an hour’s walk from Bulguksa Temple, the elaborate shrine to “Buddha Land,” grew Sokkuram Grotto, a symbol regarded as a supernatural defense against external threats to the national consciousness of the kingdom.