Unified Silla (668–935)
After centuries of warfare, the Silla Kingdom, with their Tang allies, managed to unify much of what is now North and South Korea under the dominion of a single government in a period historians usually refer to as Unified Silla. While Silla's Tang allies were useful in helping the Silla rulers destroy their rivals, the kingdoms of Baekje and Goguryeo, after their mutual enemies were defeated the allies found themselves at cross purposes. The Tang emperor, following the ambitions of his predecessors, wanted to incorporate Korea into his empire while the Silla rulers vowed to maintain an independent realm. By 676, people from all the Three Kingdoms had expelled the Chinese from Korea and the Unified Silla state enjoyed a period of great prosperity and relative peace that would last several centuries. Some of the greatest Buddhist statues in Korean art history were made during this time.
Read more about this topic: Korean Buddhist Sculpture
Famous quotes containing the word unified:
“The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.”
—William James (1842–1910)