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25. his vessel is coated in olive-colored glaze and topped
Kundika Twith a narrow, faceted, tubular spout that flares down
12th century, Goryeo into a disk and contracts again to form the neck of the bot-
TL results: fired between 600 & 1,000 years ago tle. The tubular spout is made from two sections that join at
Stoneware with celadon glaze the underside of the disk. The flat, slanting shoulder drops
H: 32.5 cm, W: 14.4 cm down into a slightly swelling body, which tapers gently into
a waist on a faintly flared foot. Another opening stems from
the shoulder with a dish-shaped mouth. The base is glazed
within the coarse footrim.
Originally a metal vessel of Indian origin, a kundika (Kr:
jeongbyeong, Ch: jìngpíng) is a Buddhist ritual vessel used
to hold “pure” water for ceremonial offerings. However, by
the first half of the twelfth century in Korea, its nonreligious
use as a water container spread to a diverse cross-section of
society. The vessel form was brought to Korea from China
1
as early as the Unified Silla period and was made in large
numbers during the Goryeo dynasty. Metal versions of this
type of bottle were also used in both China and Korea. The
bottle would have been filled through the opening with the
dish-shaped mouth.
1 Ikutaro Itoh, The Radiance of Jade and the Clarity of Water: Korean Ceramics from the Ataka Col-
lection (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1991), 44.
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