Gumi-si to Host the 7th Hyangmunhwa Grand Festival in 2023

Dorisa, Korea's First Incense Origin Site, Restores Traditional Buddhist Incense Ceremony

The Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism's Dorisa Temple (Chief Monk Myoin) held the 2023 7th Hyangmunhwa Grand Festival on the 3rd, sponsored by Gyeongbuk Province and Gumi City and organized by the Ado Cultural Promotion Institute, with about 500 attendees including Mayor Kim Jang-ho, city and provincial council members, and citizens.

Hyangmunhwa Grand Festival.

The Hyangmunhwa Grand Festival, held at Dorisa Temple, the first site of incense introduction in Korea, began in 2017 to commemorate the 1600th anniversary of the introduction of Buddhism to Silla. This year marks the 7th festival, which restores and regularizes traditional Buddhist incense rituals, establishing the cultural value of traditional Buddhist incense ceremonies.

The event included ▲ the ‘Millennium Incense Ceremony,’ passing down the millennium incense of Ado Hwasang, who first brought Buddhism to this land in 417 (King Nulji’s reign), to the present ▲ the ‘Millennium Incense Relocation,’ moving the ‘Millennium Incense’ around the sacred incense site within Dorisa Temple to the seated statue of Ado Hwasang, who first introduced Buddhism to Silla ▲ the ‘Ado Hwasang Incense Offering Ceremony,’ commemorating and inheriting Ado Hwasang’s spirit of propagation ▲ and the ‘Hyangyeonje,’ distributing incense to all attendees.

Kim Jang-ho, Mayor of Gumi, attending the Hyangmunhwa Grand Festival.

Mayor Kim Jang-ho said, “I hope that by preserving the cultural value of traditional incense through the Hyangmunhwa Grand Festival, culture content centered on incense will emerge as a new growth engine for the region.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.