As passing through the gate of Geumgang-mun, I saw a stele of the great master Byeokam.
Here, Byeokam means ‘Blue Stone’
The ‘Blue’ means the ideal concept color of ‘Hope’ and perfection, ‘Am’ means the stones.
He was a great monk and the architecture after the Japanese Invasion 1592 - 1599.
After the war, he had rebuilt several temples which had been destroyed during the War.
Whaeom-sa temple was the one of those temples.
Also he had participated in the War against the Japanese Invasion.
According to the styles of reversed arrangement of the gate and the Geumgang warriors statues, it seemed that the great master Byeokam had rebuilt the Magok-sa temple. But I could not find the records about that.
The foundation of the stele was the shape of the turtle. The turtle was the symbol of the long life.
It was the typical style of the late Choson dynasty style of the stele foundation.
There was a Buddhism instrument on the head of the turtle as same as the rosary in Catholic church.
