Estab­lished in the 8th cen­tu­ry on the slopes of Mount Toham, the Seokgu­ram Grot­to con­tains a mon­u­men­tal stat­ue of the Bud­dha look­ing at the sea in the bhu­mis­par­sha mudra posi­tion. With the sur­round­ing por­tray­als of gods, Bod­hisattvas and dis­ci­ples, all real­is­ti­cal­ly and del­i­cate­ly sculpt­ed in high and low relief, it is con­sid­ered a mas­ter­piece of Bud­dhist art in the Far East. The Tem­ple of Bul­guk­sa (built in 774) and the Seokgu­ram Grot­to form a reli­gious archi­tec­tur­al com­plex of excep­tion­al sig­nif­i­cance.