Samguk Yusa

by Ilyon

  “Beautiful and wonderful!” the King exclaimed. “Though small and narrow as a blade of grass, this place is fit to be the abode of the sixteen Nahans (disciples of Buddha) or the seven sages (legendary Chinese philosophers). With proper development of the surrounding country, this will make a fine place for people to live.” And he selected the locations of the outer city walls, the royal palaces, government offices, armories and storehouses before returning to his temporary headquarters.

  Workers and artisans from all directions responded to the King's call and commenced construction at Kumyang in February. All the sites had been prepared within a month, and a year later the whole project was finished. The King was highly pleased. Having selected an auspicious day, he moved into his new palace, and there presided personally over the national administration.

  About this time the Queen of King Hamdal in Wanha-kuk conceived and laid an egg. From the egg a boy was hatched and was named T'alhae (Remove Shell) because he emerged from an egg by throwing off its shell. When T'alhae was three feet tall and his head measured one foot across, he came over the sea to pay a formal visit to King Suro.

  “I have come,” T'alhae announced, “to take over your throne and crown.”

  “Heaven has sent me down to rule over this nation in peace,” the King replied. “I cannot give up my throne, nor will my people suffer you to put my crown on your large head.”

  “Let us settle this question by a contest of magic art,” T'alhae proposed, and the King agreed.

  In the twinkling of an eye T'alhae became a hawk, whereupon the King became an eagle; T'alhae changed into a sparrow and the King into a falcon. Finally T'alhae returned to human shape and the King also regained his noble form.

  “I surrender to Your Majesty,” T'alhae said, “During our contest I was a hawk before an eagle and a sparrow before a falcon, but I escaped death thanks to the kind heart of a noble sovereign who refrains from killing living creatures. Therefore I am unworthy to dispute your throne. Long live the King! Farewell!” And he boarded a ship which had arrived from China and departed.

  King Suro ordered five hundred warships to go in pursuit, for he feared that T'alhae might return to wage war against him. But seeing the strange ship fleeing toward Kerim (Silla), the King's warships gave up the chase and returned to port.

  In the twenty-fourth year of Kien-wu of Kuang Wu-ti in the Later Han period in the year of the monkey (Mu-sin, 49 A.D.) on the twenty-seventh day of the seventh month, the nine chief courtiers of King Suro repaired to the palace and were received in royal audience

  “It is not good for the King to be alone,” they said. “Let Your Majesty choose the most beautiful and virtuous maiden from among the girls whom we shall bring to the palace and make her your queen.”

  “I was sent down from heaven to rule this land,” the King replied, “and so my spouse will also descend from heaven at divine command. Sail toward Mangsan-do (Mountain-Viewing Island) in the south and see what happens.”

  The courtiers obeyed. When they were far out at sea, a ship with a red sail and flying a red flag appeared on the horizon, darting toward the north like an arrow. The Kaya sailors waved torches and made signs for the mysterious ship to come near. When it did so, they found that a beautiful princess was on board. The sailors escorted her to the shore, where a courier mounted a swift steed and galloped off to convey the news to the King.

  The King was exceedingly glad. He commanded the nine senior courtiers to meet the princess on the seashore and conduct her to the palace.

  ( The courtiers proceeded to the coast and encountered the princess.) “Welcome, princess!” they said. “The King desires you to enter the palace and be received in audience immediately.”

  “You are strangers,” the princess modestly replied. “I cannot follow you, nor can I be so unmaidenly as to enter the palace without due ceremony.”

  The courtiers conveyed the princess' words to the King, and he was struck by her virgin modesty and queenly dignity. He ordered a tent pitched in front of his detached palace on a hill sixty feet southwest of the royal residence and awaited her arrival.

  The princess left her ship with her suite, which consisted of the two courtiers Sin Po and Cho Kuang, their wives Mojong and Moryang and twenty slaves who carried gold, silver, jewels, silk brocade and tableware in countless boxes as her trousseau. When she reached the top of the hill she changed her brocade trousers and offered them as a gift to the mountain spirit. Then she approached the tent and the King rose to meet her.

  The King bestowed native costumes and jewels upon the suite and bade them rest on beds covered with embroidered quilts and pillows. Then he and the princess entered the sleeping chamber.

  “I am a princess of Ayuta (in India),” the princess said. “My family name is Ho, my given name is Hwang-Ok (Yellow Jade), and I am sixteen years old. In May this year my royal father and mother said to me, 'Last night we had a dream, and in our dream we saw a god who said, “I have sent down Suro to be King of Karak, and Suro is a holy man. He is not yet married, so send your daughter to become his Queen.” Then he ascended to heaven. It is the command of the god, and his words are still ringing in our ears. My daughter, bid farewell to your parents and go.' So I started on my long voyage, with steamed dates of the sea and fairy peaches of heaven for my provisions. Now I blush to stand in your noble presence.”

  (It is interesting to note that the city of Ayuthia was at one time the capital of the kingdom of Thailand.)

  “I knew that you were coming,” the King told her. “so I refused all the maidens whom my courtiers recommended as my spouse. Now my heart leaps with joy to receive a most beautiful and virtuous princess as my Queen.”

  The King passed two nights and one day with the princess from India. When it was time for her escort to return home he gave each person thirty rolls (one roll is forty yards) of hempen cloth and ten large bags of rice to sustain them on their voyage.

  On the first day of the eighth month the King and his Queen entered the royal palace in colorful palanquins, accompanied by courtiers in carriages and on horseback and followed by a long train of wagons laden with the trousseau which the princess had brought with her from India. She was escorted into the inner palace, and the two courtiers and their wives who had accompanied her from India were accommodated in separate apartments. The rest of her suite were given a guest house of twenty rooms and given food and drink, and her household articles and precious jewels were put in a store-room for her use at all times.

  One day the King said to his courtiers, “The Kans are the chief government officials, but the pronunciation of their titles is vulgar and unaesthetic and their written titles in Chinese characters make them a laughing-stock to foreigners.” He therefore changed the official titles as follows: Ado to Agung, Yodo to Yohae, Pido to Pijang, Obang to Osang, Yusu to Yukong, Yuch'on to Yudok, Sinch'on to Sindo, Och'on to Onung, and Sinkwi to Sinkwi.

  (The last two are pronounced the same but written differently. This would appear to be a reference to the adaptation of the Chinese system of government, together with official titles that would have been regarded as correct by the Chinese.)

  The King adopted the official organization of Kerim (Silla), creating peers with titles such as Kakkan, Ajilkan and Kupkan and reforming his government on the models of the Chou and Han dynasties of China. He loved his people like his own children and benevolently taught them the arts of civilized life.

  The marriage of the King and Queen was like the combination of two harmonious beings—heaven and earth, sun and moon, yang and yin (the two complementary forces in the universe in Chinese philosophy). She was a faithful and true helpmeet to the King, shining like a ruby or a sapphire—and indeed she was an Indian jewel and rendered valuable service in the rise of his royal household, like the vassals who assisted the King of Hsia and the two daughters of Yao who attended Shun, their royal husband, in ancient China. (The customary references to legendary Chinese rulers. Hsia is the name of the earl
iest Chinese dynasty of which there is actual evidence.)

  The royal couple lived happily for many years. In due time they both dreamed of seeing a bear, and sure enough the Queen conceived and bore a son. This was Crown Prince Kodung.

  On the first of March in the sixth year of Chung-p'ing in the reign of Ling-ti, the year of the snake, Kisa (189) the Queen died at the age of one hundred and fifty-seven. The people mourned as if they had lost their own mothers and buried her on a hill northeast of Kuji. They changed the name of the beach where she first landed to Chup'och'on, that of the hill on which she changed her brocade skirt to Nunghyon, and that of the seacoast where she waved her red flag at the shore to Kich'ulpyon, so that her arrival in Karak should always be remembered.

  Sin Po and Cho Kuang, who attended the Queen on her voyage from India, each begat daughters about thirty years after their arrival, and both died a few years later. The Queen's male and female slaves all died of homesickness within seven or eight years of their arrival and left no children, so that their guest hall was vacant.

  The King spent many lonely hours in deep grief after the death of the Queen, and at last he also died ten years later at the age of one hundred and fifty-eight, on the 23rd of March in the fourth year of Kien-an during the reign of Hsien-ti in the year of the hare, Ki-myo (199). (There is obviously some confusion in these dates.) The people wailed as if heaven had fallen and buried him in a mausoleum ten feet high and 300 feet in circumference to the northeast of the palace. A shrine was erected and sacrifices were offered annually on the third and seventh of January, the fifth of May and the 15th of August to the spirits of King Suro and his royal descendants for nine generations.

  During the reign of Popmin (King Munmu, thirtieth Silla sovereign, 661-681), the King issued a decree: “When King Kuhyong, in the ninth generation of descent from the founder of Karak-kuk, surrendered to Silla, he brought with him to Kerim (Kyongju) his crown prince, Sejong. Sejong begat Solu-kong, Solukong begat Soun-Chapkan, Soun-Chapkan begat Queen Munmyong, and Queen Munmyong gave birth to me.9 The founder of Karak-kuk is therefore my ancestor of fifteen generations ago. Though Karak was destroyed long ago, his shrine still exists today. Ye, my loyal subjects, must enshrine his tablet in the national sanctuary with those of my royal predecessors and offer annual sacrifice to his noble spirit at his shrine.”

  The King dispatched a messenger to the ruins of Karak-kuk to set apart thirty 'kyong' (furrows?) of fertile rice land to support the caretaker of the tomb and pay for the ceremonies. Kaeng-se Kupkan, in the seventeenth generation of descent from King Suro, was appointed caretaker, to offer wine, rice cakes, tea and sweets to the royal spirits on the five annual memorial days fixed by King Kodung.

  From the time King Kodung first established the royal resting-place at his palace until the reign of King Kuhyong the sacrificial offerings at King Suro's tomb continued for 330 years, after which they were suspended from time to time until King Munmu of Silla decreed their resumption.

  In the closing days of Silla a local official called Ch'ungji-Chapkan took control of Kumgwan fortress and styled himself General-Magistrate of the city. One of his subordinates, Yongkyu-Agan, was in the habit of offering sacrifices to obscene idols at the shrine of King Suro. While he was engaged in invoking these gods' blessings on his family one day, a heavy beam fell from the ceiling and crushed him to death.

  The General-Magistrate was frightened almost to death. He had a portrait of King Suro painted on a three-foot length of silk embroidered with a twisting dragon, hung it on the wall with an oil lamp burning before it and worshipped it daily, morning and evening. After three days tears of blood fell like rain from both eyes of the portrait and made a deep pool on the ground. He then took the portrait to King Suro's shrine and burned it there. Summoning a descendant of Suro named Kyurim, He said, “One misfortune rides on the neck of another in my family. The King's spirit is angry at me because of my disrespectful worship of his portrait. I feared to look at it and burned it, and now perhaps his ghost will strike me dead. I wish you to resume the sacrificial ceremonies as before.”

  Kyurim consented, and conducted the rites regularly thereafter until his death after a long life of eighty-eight years. But while his son Kanwon-kyong was worshipping at the shrine on a May Day, Yong-kyu's son Chunp'il went mad. He jumped into the shrine, kicked away the sacrificial food and spread another table with his own offerings. Before he had offered the third cup of wine to his obscene idols he was taken ill, and died of insanity on the way home.

  There is an old saying, “Obscene idols send down calamities instead of blessings on the offerer of sacrifice.” This refers to Yongkyu and Chunp'il, the disrespectful father and son.

  One night a gang of thieves entered the shrine to steal the gold and jeweled ornaments. Immediately a fierce-looking general clad in steel armor rushed from the shrine and twanged his bow in all directions, killing seven or eight of the thieves and putting the rest to flight. A few evenings later the survivors returned, and this time a tiger more than thirty feet tall leaped from behind the shrine roaring loudly and tore eight or nine of them to pieces with its sharp claws and teeth, while the rest were all frightened to death. These punishments proved the presence of heavenly spirits in the precincts of King Suro's tomb and shrine, keeping off all sacrilegious persons.

  Eight hundred and seventy-eight years have passed since this shrine was erected in the fourth year of Kienan (193, recorded as the date of King Suro's death) until the thirty-first year of the present monarch (Munjong, 1046-1083) and in all that time not a green sod on the tomb mound has died or faded, not a rare tree in the precincts has died or decayed, and not a single jade ornament in the shrine housing the King's tablet has been broken.

  Hsin Ch'ieh-p'i (a Chinese scholar during the T'ang dynasty) once said, “In all ages and times, no nation has escaped ruin and no tomb has escaped destruction.” This is true of the kingdom of Karak, but not of the undemolished tomb of King Suro.

  Ever since the heyday of Karak, the inhabitants of the region (modern Kimhae and vicinity) have celebrated the 29th of July each year by climbing Songchom Mountain, where they pitch tents on the east and west. There are singing, dancing, athletic contests, and many a bottle of wine. The strong young men are divided into right and left teams and gallop their horses from Mangsan-do (Mountain-Viewing Island) toward the shore, while gaily decorated boats with red sails carry beautifully dressed maidens toward the old landing-place. This festival celebrates the arrival of the Princess of India (Empress Ho) and the setting off of Yuch'on and Sinkwi, the two Karak chiefs, to bring the news to the King.

  Since the ruin of Karak-kuk the name of the area has been changed many times. In the year of the coronation of King Chongmyong of Silla (posthumous title Sinmun, 681) it was called Kumgwan-kyong, with a magistrate stationed there. Following the reunification of the Three Hans by King T'aejo (of Koryo, 918) 259 years later it was called Imhae-hyon for forty-eight years, and had a naval governor. Then it was called Imhae-gun or Kimhae-pu. There was an army headquarters there for twenty-seven years and a naval headquarters for sixty-four years.

  In the second year of Hsun-hua (991) a land surveyor in Kimhae-pu named Cho Mun-son reported to the King that the acreage set aside for the maintenance of King Suro's shrine was too large and that it should be reduced to fifteen 'kyol' (unit of farmland) as under the old system and the remainder divided among the corvee laborers employed in Kimhae prefecture. When the King received this recommendation he rejected it, saying, “A sage-king emerged from an egg from Heaven and ruled over his people for 158 years, until he died. This was a happy event whose equal is rarely found in the history of the world since the time of the three legendary emperors (Sui-len, Fu-hsi and Shen-nung) of ancient China. I am too much in awe of his memory to reduce the acreage which supports King Suro's shrine, which has been hallowed ever since his death by his royal descendants.”

  But the surveyor persisted in his recommendations, and at length the court agr
eed that half of the shrine land should be given to the corvee laborers. When the division had been completed by royal order, the surveyor suddenly fell ill and was obliged to take to his bed. There he fell asleep and dreamed that he saw seven or eight ghosts armed with long ropes and sharp swords approaching him with a terrible roar: “You have done us wrong. We shall cut off your head!” Down flashed the swords like lightning upon his neck and up sprang the surveyor from his bed, waking with a scream. He was so frightened that he ran out of the house, and fell dead as he was passing through the city gate. His death prevented him from affixing his seal to the land-survey register (which was necessary to make the transfer of shrine land legal).

  King Kimchil, in the eighth generation of descent from King Suro, was mindful of the welfare of his people and upheld moral principles. He prayed for the repose of the fragrant soul of Queen Ho, the Princess of India, and in the twenty-ninth year of Yuan-chia, in the year of the dragon, he had a Buddhist temple erected at the place where she took her marriage vows to King Suro, calling it Wanghu-sa (the Queen's Temple), with ten kyol of farmland for its support.

  Five hundred years later another temple (Changyu-sa) was erected nearby with a royal donation of 300 kyol of farm and forest land to provide food and firewood for the monks. They demolished the Queen's Temple to the southeast and built a farmstead on its ruins to store grain and pasture horses and cattle. All the passers-by shed hot tears at the desolate state of the Queen's temple. A lone monument, weather-beaten and overgrown with moss, still stands on the ruins. It bears the following inscription:

  “In the beginning when heaven and earth were created there were people but no king to rule over them in this land. In the Middle Kingdom (China) there had been kings and emperors for many generations, and in the Eastern nations capitals were established, in Kerim first and in Karak later. But in Karak there was no king who cared for the welfare of the inhabitants.