A temple without a body or a community
According to The Korea Herald, a 26-year-old job seeker, identified only by the surname Park, built an entirely online Buddhist temple called Sansa using 'vibe coding': an AI-assisted programming method that allows software to be created by giving instructions in natural language. The article cites news reports circulated on Sunday. Anyone entering the site finds a temple set in a forest, with a large Buddha statue at the center of the prayer hall. Each visitor receives an avatar resembling a young monk, with a randomly assigned name, and can move, bow, turn prayer beads and listen to Buddhist chants.
The most significant detail the newspaper identifies is the absence of interaction: Sansa offers neither chat nor messaging. Visitors share the same hall without speaking to one another. It is a fact that shifts attention from religious content to the function the site appears to serve: offering a silent pause to those who lack the time or energy for a real pilgrimage, as Park himself recounts.
The spread and the numbers
The reported success has exceeded expectations: since going online on Thursday, according to the source, the virtual temple attracts more than 100,000 visitors a day, with a total exceeding 600,000 visits. Park told a local outlet that the idea arose from his own difficulties finding work. He added that he believes temples appeal to his peers because they welcome everyone, including non-Buddhists, and that the large response made him realize how many others are as tired as he is.
Similar platforms have emerged from that experience. One is called Chanmi and recreates a Catholic church with pews, votive candles and rosaries; visitors can listen to traditional hymns, and the Angelus bells ring three times a day, at 6, 12 and 18. Another, Goyottul, reproduces a Protestant church where prayer intentions can be shared and sermons heard.
A religiosity without belonging
The phenomenon is interpreted by Sung Hae-young, a professor of religious studies at Seoul National University, quoted by the newspaper. According to the professor, Buddhism speaks to young people because it recognizes that life is full of suffering and proposes ways to overcome it through personal understanding. People, he added, seek a sense of peace and sacredness similar to that of a place of worship, but they do not necessarily want to bind themselves to a religious community or feel obliged to believe without questioning: anonymous online spaces offer exactly this.
The material does not indicate who created the platforms inspired by Sansa, nor their user numbers, nor whether the religious denominations involved have recognized them. It therefore remains to be verified whether traffic persists beyond the first days and what the actual nature of these environments is, which the newspaper describes as places of comfort and not as substitutes for religious practice.
