Korean ancestors made graceful and excellent bells a lot by steadily developing metal casting technology.
A typical example is the bell at the Pongdok Temple. The bell has no match in terms of artistic gracefulness as its overall shape is refined and decorations carved on its surface are admirable. And it can be said to be the epitome of the Korean nation’s wisdom and talent because of its beautiful sound.
Japan, which had put overseas invasion forward as its major policy, frequently raided Korea from the period of Koryo (918-1392) to plunder many bells from it.
Over a dozen of them have inscriptions carved on their surfaces after being taken away. More than half of the engravings were reportedly those carved between 1367 and 1381. This shows that Japan’s plunder of Korean bells was rampant in the closing years of Koryo.
Its gangster-like plunder of Korean bells grew more rampant during the Imjin Patriotic War (1592-1598).
After a large-scale invasion of Korea, the Japanese plundered bells from Buddhist temples at random to hang them in temples of their country while being hell-bent on man-killing and arson at every place they occupied.
In the end there remained only a small number of bells associated with wisdom and talent of the Korean nation.
The Japanese themselves did not conceal the fact that their country had more Korean bells than Korea has.
Sekino Tadashi , a government-patronized historian of Japan, said that as quite many temple bells from the period of Koryo had long been passed on to Japan, they could make a sufficient study of the styles of copper bells from those days, thus revealing that his country had taken away a large number of Korean bells belonging to different eras.
Fujita Ryosaku , who was a part-timer of the historical spot investigation department of the government-general in Korea during the Japanese imperialists’ military occupation of it, also described in his article titled “Koryo Culture” that “all those that became national treasures in Japan are temple bells from the period of Koryo and there remain a small number of them in Korea”.
The Japanese ruling circles allege that not a few of Korean bells are their own, designating them as “national treasures” of Japan.
All the facts prove how much the Japanese imperialists attempted to stamp out the cultural tradition of the Korean nation and at the same time disclose Japan’s deep-rooted history of aggression and plunder against Korea.
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