Sambulam Hermitage (Gimje)

About this place

Sambulam is a Korean Buddhist Taegojong temple in Buldang Village, Juksan-myeon, Gimje-si. According to a long-standing tradition in Buldang Village, fishermen would offer prayers to a stone Buddha before going out to sea. One day a great tidal wave struck and the stone Buddha disappeared. Later, Jeong Jin-seop of Bangmok-ri fell asleep drunk by the village pond; in his dream, the Buddha appeared and said: 'If you drain the pond, three Buddha statues will emerge; build a shrine on the empty land to the south of the pond and enshrine them, and your wishes will be granted.' This same dream visited him for two consecutive nights, and Jeong, who had no son, gathered the villagers to drain the pond. Sure enough, three Buddha statues appeared. They built a shrine and enshrined the three statues. The legend is well-known, and to this day people wishing for children come to Sambulam in numbers; the village also prepares water and land rites (suryukjae) at the estuary of the Dongjin River every third day of the third lunar month. The current shrine building was newly constructed in 1959. Sambulam contains a living quarters, a bell tower, a stone pagoda, a child statue, a reconstruction monument, and a celestial horse statue. The three stone Buddhas enshrined in Sambulam are natural stones placed atop a long natural stone base rather than sculpted figures.