Overview
The wooden halls were burned in the invasion of 1593 and rebuilt from the 1960s, but the platform they stand on — the double stairways, the bridge-stairs with their names about crossing from this world to the Buddha land — is Silla stonework and has never moved. Dabotap and Seokgatap, the two pagodas in the main court, are deliberately unlike: one ornate, one plain, standing for two ways of seeing the same teaching. The oldest surviving woodblock print in the world was found inside Seokgatap in 1966.
Highlights
Look at the stone before the buildings — the platform, the stairs and the two pagodas are what survived and what the temple is famous for. Seokguram is up the mountain behind and is a separate ticket and a separate trip. Arrive at opening; this is the busiest single site in Gyeongju.