By Jaydeep Sarkar



Exploring South Korea's cultural treasures would be incomplete without any visits to its historic Buddhist temples, often nestled among mountains.



Several ancient temples have rich collections of historic artifacts, including stupas (budos), bells, ritual objects and paintings. Some of these objects carry motifs and texts written using non-Hangul characters that have their origins in Sanskrit.



Sanskrit, a classical language of India, made its way to China, Korea and Japan via Central Asia. The process of transmission started in early centuries of A.D. along the continental trade routes, called Silk Roads, and later through maritime trade routes.



In particular, the spread of Buddhism from ancient India played an important role in the transmission of Sanskrit language to various parts of Asia.



In East Asia, a number of scripts such as Siddham, Ranjana and Uchen were historically used to write Sanskrit seed syllables, dharanis and mantras since the 4th or 5th century.



In a Hindu-Buddhist religious context, a Sanskrit seed syllable (bija), often a single syllable sound, can be a basic mantra representing the visible form of a deity. Om (in Siddham), is a supreme seed syllable revered by Hindus as well as Buddhists.



Prior to the invention of Hangul in the 15th century, Chinese texts translated from Sanskrit texts had been used in Korea. Chinese called Sanskrit fanyin (Brahma sound).

In spite of massive translations of Sanskrit Buddhist texts into Chinese, nearly 7,000 volumes by mid-Tang period, Sanskrit found a special place in Buddhism because mantras could not be pronounced accurately using Chinese.





Painted ceiling of Mihwang Temple showing mantra written in Sanskrit. Courtesy of Cultural Heritage Administration