Hwasun Unjusa Thousand Buddhas Site (화순 운주사 천불천탑)

Unjusa Temple in Hwasun, South Jeolla Province, holds a unique concentration of unfinished stone Buddha images and stone pagodas — approximately 70 surviving stone Buddhas and 21 pagodas scattered across the valley floor and hillside in a distribution that does not follow the conventional temple layout. The origin of the sculptures — some lying flat on the ground, some carved into the rock faces — is entirely uncertain; the temple tradition holds that they were carved in a single night by the monk Doseon, though modern scholarship suggests they may be the product of local Buddhist communities over several centuries. The site's strange atmosphere — the incomplete Buddhas lying in the grass, the informal distribution — is unlike any other Buddhist heritage site in Korea.

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