The Precarious and the Unbuilt: On Architectonic Forms and Buddhist Reliquary in Early Korea

In Buddhist material culture, miniaturized architectonic forms that defy structural purposes abound, yet existing scholarship tends to regard them as merely decorative. Apart from possible narrative purposes, what role do these architectonic forms serve in communicating religious ideas, and what should we make of their varying degrees of completion? Thinking through the Hwangboksa reliquary in early Korea, this paper argues that architectonic forms serve as an expedient means to aid visualization of abstract Buddhist concepts. Inspired yet unbound by scriptural sources, the replication of pagodas in the Hwangboksa reliquary efficaciously simulates the sense of spatial-temporal infinity. That some of these pagodas appear incomplete, abruptly truncated, or indistinguishable from its material support throws into relief the elasticity of architectonic forms in expressing aspects of Buddhist cosmology. The case of the Hwangboksa reliquary thus foregrounds the aesthetic of incompleteness in Buddhist art, which remains underexamined in scholarship that prioritizes compositional or technical finesse. Through exploring the questions of the architectonic and the unfinished, this paper also proposes a reading of Buddhist reliquary as less a ritual implement for commemoration than a site that propels metaphysical contemplation.