Yeonhwasa Temple (Namwon)

About this place

Yeonhwasa is a Korean Buddhist Taegojong temple in Ibaek-myeon, Namwon-si. It is said to have been founded at the end of the Silla period by the monk Doseon (827-898), but no documents or artifacts corroborate this. The temple site was long the location of an hermitage with a Maitreya statue, and in 1927 villagers excavated a stone Buddha and a three-story stone pagoda there. In 1942, Yi Hwa-sil and Jo Hae-un set up a shelter here, naming it Mireukjeon in 1946. In 1967, nun Nam Sun-im renamed it Hyogisa following the village name; in 1972, Yi Do-ryun became head monk and rebuilt it; and in 1977 it was renamed to its current name. Existing structures include Yonghwajeon, Gwanumjeon, and a living quarters. The Mireukjeon built in 1946 (now Yonghwajeon) is a three-bay-front, one-bay-deep gabled roof structure housing two stone Buddha statues and an Amitabha Trinity. Gwanumjeon, a three-bay-front, two-bay-deep hip-and-gable structure built in 1997, contains a Thousand-Armed Guanyin statue and a Jijang Bodhisattva statue, behind which hang several recently made altar paintings.