Samgwangsa

This guide to Samgwangsa in Busan starts with a puzzle even temple records can't settle: whether the site began in 1969, 1983, or 1986, as the Cheontae Buddhist order it belongs to grew from a small following into one of Korea's largest denominations. It turns to the one certain date, 1992, when workers finished carving the granite pagoda in front of you, block on stone block with no hidden steel frame, ringed with zodiac animals and scenes from the Buddha's life. Along the way it touches on what the builders folded into that design about a divided Korea, and the terraced hillside reshaped to hold thousands of worshippers at once.