The figures seen in Korean temples are reproduced in Buddhist temples throughout Asia, the supreme and central form being that of Sakya-muni or Buddha. In the sculpture and artistic development of this, the central figure of their pantheon, there is little, if any, deviation from the conventional traditions of India, Siam, Thibet, and Mongolia. The sage is crouching on his knees with the souls of his feet turned upward to the face; the palms and fingers of his hands pressed together; the eyes are slightly oblique, and the lobes of the ears somewhat bulbous. The throne consists of the open calyx of a lotus flower, the symbol of eternity. The splendour of the figures in the Temple of the Tree of Buddha is noticeable; and the lustre of the heavy gilding gleams from about the altar into the dimness and uncertain light of the vast chamber like the rays of some spiritual fire. Devotional exercises never cease in this House of the Ever-Supreme Lord, the services and constant offering of prayer being taken in turn by the officiating priests. At these moments, when the lonely figure of the priest is seen pleading with the Ever-Supreme Lord, in his most sacred Temple and before his most sacred shrine, for the grace of forgiveness, the scene is one of the most extraordinary solemnity. As the chant rises and falls in the great spaces of the hall and the swaying figure rocks in the despair of his passionate self-abandonment the sympathies and emotions are strangely stirred. The stages of the services are marked by blows upon a bell which the priest holds before him, the while he casts himself upon his face and kneels before the resplendent Buddha.