::A Geek in Korea::

Brother Sister Pagoda

My friend who came to Korea for a tour last month had a picture he couldn’t explain. My coworker recreated the story behind the picture:

A monk was praying in the cave when a tiger approached him and roared loudly in pain. The monk looked inside the tiger’s mouth, he saw a thorn causing the tiger’s pain. The monk removed the thorn, and the tiger left.

The tiger returned to the cave where the monk lived carrying a beautiful woman that the tiger had taken from a nearby village. This was the gift for removing the thorn.

The monk was, of course, unable to marry the woman and still remain pious. The woman, having been abducted by the tiger, was unable to find anyone to marry her when she returned to her village. Her parents urged her to rejoin the monk and convince him to marry her.

Instead, they decided to live as brother and sister on the mountain. The name “Nam Mae Top”, means “Brother, Sister Pagoda”.

The pagoda contains remains of the “brother and sister”. According to my coworker, devoutly pious people have some sort of stone (kidney stone?) develop in their bodies as proof of their religious belief. That stone is what is buried in the pagoda.