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    Sanshin-gak – The Mountain Spirit Hall: 산신각

    Introduction At a Korean Buddhist temple, you will often find shaman deities. Usually, you can find these shaman deities housed inside a shaman shrine hall called a Samseong-gak Hall. Housed inside this hall are Sanshin (The Mountain Spirit), Dokseong (The Lonely Saint), Chilseong (The Seven Stars) and/or Yongwang (The Dragon King). These shaman deities are also sometimes housed in their own shaman shrine halls like a Sanshin-gak, a Dokseong-gak, a Chilseong-gak, or a Yongwang-dang. Or there can be a combination with two shaman deities housed in the same shrine hall like inside a Sanshin/Dokseong-gak. Sanshin-gak Design The first of these shaman deities I’ll be talking about is Sanshin, or “The…