Samguk Yusa

by Ilyon

  His fair judgment allowed no diverse argument;

  His life-wheel rolled down after the Golden Wheel,7

  His reign of peace heightened the sun of Buddha.

  Song of Praise to Yomch'ok

  He gave up his life for the sake of righteousness.

  Who would not wonder at his noble courage?

  The white milk of his blood shot high into the sky

  And descended in a spray of heavenly flowers;

  After he had lost his head by one stroke of the sword,

  The beating of drums in many temples rumbled over the metropolis.

  63. King Pop Prohibits Killing

  The twenty-ninth sovereign of Paekje was King Pop. His childhood name was Son and he was also called Hyosun. He ascended the throne in the tenth year of Kai-huang of Sui Wen-ti (599). In the winter of that same year he promulgated a law prohibiting the taking of life (in accordance with Buddhist belief) and commanding his people to free falcons and destroy fishing tackle in private homes. In the following year he ordained thirty new monks and began the construction of Wanghung Temple in his capital, Sajasong (Sabisong). Work had hardly been finished on preparation of the site, however, when he died, leaving completion of the task to his son King Mu, who finally finished it in the thirty-fifth year of his reign.

  This temple was also called Miruk-sa (Temple of Maitreya Buddha). Behind it stood a picturesque mountain like an embroidered wind-screen, overlooking the silvery Saja River. The temple was a scene of natural beauty in all seasons, with rare flowering plants and awe-inspiring trees within its precincts. The King often sailed down the river to visit the temple and admire its beauty.

  This account is at variance with those given in old books of legends, which say that King Mu was born of a poor woman who had fallen in love with a pond-dragon and that his childhood name was Sodong (Potato Boy; see the account in Book Two under this name). After his romantic marriage to Princess Sonhwa of Silla he ascended the throne of Paekje and had this temple built to gladden her heart.

  Song of Praise to King Pop

  He spared the lives of the fowls of the air and the beasts of the land—

  His grace reached a thousand hills and streams;

  His beneficence rejoiced a thousand pigs and fish;

  The four seas were filled with his benevolence.

  Sing to the Great King, for he descended to earth from the Buddha Land

  In Tosol-ch'on8 above the fragrant spring is in full glory.

  64. Taoism and the Downfall of Koguryo

  According to the Koryo Pon-gi, in the closing days of that kingdom, during the days of Wu-te and Chen-kuan (T'ang Emperors Kao-tsu and Tai-tsung, 618-649), the people of Koguryo turned to the worship of Taoism, contributing five bushels of rice each to the priests. When the T'ang Emperor Kao-tsu heard of this, he sent a Taoist priest to Koguryo with portraits of Lao Tzu to expound his Classic of Morality (probably the Tao Te Ching is intended here) to the people. Among those who listened to this priest was King Yong-nyu of Koguryo, who had been on the throne for seven years, the date then being the seventh year of Wu-te (624).

  In the following year the King sent an envoy to the T'ang court to seek knowledge of Taoism and Buddhism and the Emperor (Kao-tsu) granted his wish.

  After his coronation in the sixteenth year of Chen-yuan (642), King Pojang wished to see Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism flourish in harmony in his kingdom. Thereupon his prime minister Hapsomun (also called Kaesomun; full name Ch'on or Yon Hapsomun or Kaesomun) said, “Confucianism and Buddhism are popular among the people but there are only a few believers in the mysterious doctrine of Lao Tzu, even though the yellow-capped preachers teach Taoism, telling the people that if they worship Lao Tzu they can become 'Sinson' (divine beings) and ascend to heaven like the founder of the religion, whose name was Togyo or Son-gyo. We should therefore dispatch another envoy to China to invite more Taoist missionaries.”

  At this time Podok-Hwasang, a famous Koguryo monk, dwelt at Panyong Temple. He expostulated with the King concerning the importation of paganism (i.e. Taoism) in competition with the orthodox religion (Buddhism), saying that the division of the national spirit caused by conflicting religious doctrines brought in by heretics jeopardized the safety of the state and of the throne, but the King would not listen to his wise counsel.

  With a sigh of resignation, the good monk moved his abode to a high mountain in the south (Kodae-san) in Wansanju (now Chonju). He did this by calling upon his favorite wind and, by his spiritual power, flying through the air, temple and all, to the new location. This was in the first year of Ying-hui (650), although the Samguk Sagi dates it as March 3 in the second year of Chienfeng (667). Koguryo was destroyed as a kingdom soon after, in the first year of Tsung-chang (668), nineteen years after Podok abandoned it and landed in his flying hermitage on the grounds of Kyongpok Temple. According to the Samguk Sagi this temple and the flying hermitage still exist today.

  Chinnak-kong (Yi Cha-hyon, a Koryo poet) wrote a poem on the wall of Podok's cell in the marvellous hermitage in praise of his heroic flight, and Munyol-kong (Kim Pu-sik, the author of the Samguk Sagi) compiled his biography, which was widely read throughout the country.

  According to the T'ang-shu, when the Sui Emperor led his troops in an attack on Koguryo in Liaotung his lieutenant Yang-min (Yang-myong in Korean) was defeated in a fierce battle and died swearing that his resentful spirit would be reborn as the favorite courtier of the Koguryo king and ruin the country. Sure enough, his reborn tiger-spirit acquired the power of life and death over the people of Koguryo. He took the family name Hap or Kae, which is written by combining the two characters of his name in his former life into one.

  An old Koguryo book states that in the eighth year of Ta-yeh (612) the Sui Emperor Yang-ti led 300,000 troops in an attack on Koguryo from the sea. Two years later in the twenty-fifth year of King Yong-yang (of Koguryo, 614), Emperor Yang-ti mounted a second seaborne attack to retrieve the failure of the first. King Yongyang sent an official envoy to the enemy camp, offering to surrender. In the envoy's party was a strong man who carried a small bow and a sharp arrow concealed on his person. While the Emperor was examining the envoy's credentials, this bow twanged and the arrow struck the Emperor in the breast. He shrieked wildly, and commanded the ships to retire and return to China.

  “I am the Celestial Emperor, the master in the Middle Kingdom of the world,” he said to his attendants, “but I cannot conquer this small kingdom in the East and now I have received this tragic wound in my breast. I shall be a laughing-stock for ten thousand generations.”

  At this time the Right Minister, Yang-min, swore to the weeping Emperor, “When I die, I shall be reborn in Koguryo, where I shall become prime minister and ruin the kingdom to avenge my wounded Emperor.”

  After the death of the Emperor Yangmin also died and was reborn in Koguryo. By the time he was fifteen he was famous throughout the country for his uncommon intelligence and godlike genius in the civil and military arts. King Muyang (actually King Yongnyu, 618-642, Ilyon says) summoned him to the palace and made him a courtier. He then took the name Kae-kum, Kae being the family name. He was soon promoted to the highest office in the government, with the title of Somun, which is equivalent to Sijung, or prime minister. (Ilyon quotes the T'ang-shu as saying that “Hap (Kae) Somun took the title of Mangniji, something like Chung-shu-ling in the T'ang court.”)

  One day Kae-kum said to the King, “As a kettle is three-footed so a state should have three religions, whereas in our country Confucianism and Buddhism flourish without Taoism. Perhaps, like a two-footed kettle, this kingdom will capsize.” The King understood him and granted favors to Taoism, accepting eight Taoist priests including Hsuta whom the T'ang Emperor T'ai-tsung had sent to Koguryo. The King remodeled Buddhist temples into Taoist lecture halls and placed the Taoist priests above the ranks of the Confucian scholars.

  The Samguk Sagi says that in the eighth year of Wu-te (625) the King of Koguryo approache
d the T'ang Emperor through an envoy, wishing to spread the teachings of both Buddha and Lao Tzu, and the Emperor granted his wish. But if Yang-min died in 614 and was reborn in Koguryo in the same year, this account would make him prime minister at the age of ten, which is ridiculous. There must be a chronological error in the records.

  The Taoist priests from China traveled throughout Koguryo, inspecting mountains and rivers and calling on genii to guard them against evil spirits. (Choosing the sites of buildings and graves according to certain configurations of the landscape was a Taoist practice.) They declared that the old city wall of P'yonyang was shaped like a new moon, and ordered Nam Ha-ryong to build a new city wall outside the old one in the shape of a full moon, calling it Yong-on-song (Dragon-Dam Wall) to stand for a thousand years. Moreover, they unearthed and broke up the “Holy Stone” in P'yongyang because it had been worshipped as the To-je-am (Emperor's Rock) or Choch'on-sok (Heaven-Audience Stone) which sage-emperors in the misty past rode like a flying chariot to their audiences with the gods according to legend.

  Kae-kum also persuaded the King to build a great wall from the northeast to the southwest seacoast, drafting men for the labor and forcing women to till the fields. This wall took sixteen years to complete.

  During the reign of King Pojang the T'ang Emperor T'ai-tsung led six armies in person against Koguryo, but was defeated and forced to withdraw. However during the reign of his son the Emperor Kao-tsung, in the first year of Tsung-chang (668), the Right Minister Liu Jen-kuei and Field General Li-chi, together with Kim In-mun of Silla, launched a shock attack on P'yongyang, destroyed Koguryo, and sent King Pojang a prisoner to the T'ang court. The King's illegitimate son (Prince An-sung) then led 4,000 Koguryo households in surrendering to Silla.

  In the eighth year of Ta-an (1092), Uich'on, the national priest of Koryo (i.e. the highest-ranking Buddhist cleric in the kingdom) visited the flying hermitage at Kyongpok Temple on Mt. Kodae, bowed deeply to the portrait of Podok, and composed the following poem.

  He held high the sacred torch to show the way to Nirvana.

  Ah pity! His King and people followed yellow-caps and fairymen.

  Alas, his holy abode flew to a southern mountain-top,

  And his ruined native land illuminates the East no more. The priest added to this poem the following explanation; “King Pojang of Koguryo, enchanted by the weird spells of the Taoist priests, rejected the wise counsel of Podok and did not believe in Buddha. The King was forsaken by Buddha and Podok flew in his abode and descended on this mountain (Kodae-san) and lived in a solitary cell. Later a god-man appeared on Maryong (Horse Peak) in Koguryo and said to the mountaineers, 'Your country has been forsaken by Buddha. It will fall into ruin very soon.' ” This story is to be found in the Samguk Sagi. The others are found in the Dynastic Chronicles and in the Biographies of the Monks.

  Podok had eleven disciples, of whom Musang-Hwasang, with his disciple Kim Ch'wi, created Kumdong-sa; Chokmyol and Uiyung built Chinku-sa; Chisu built Taesung-sa; listing, together with Simjong and Taewon, built Taewon-sa; Sujong built Yuma-sa; Sadae, aided by Kyekuk, built Chungdae-sa; Kaewon-Hwasang built Kaewon-sa; and Myongdok created Yon-gu-sa. The stories of two further disciples, Kaesim and Pomyong, are found in the their biographies.

  Song of Praise to Podok

  Wide and deep as the boundless sea is the Buddha's way,

  Narrow and shallow as a hundred streams are Confucianism and Taoism;

  Streams flow into the sea to join the waves of its eternal life.

  The pitiful King of Koguryo, sitting wet on the beach

  Forgot to watch the Reclining Dragon flying to the southern sea.

  65. The Ten Saints of Hungnyun Temple in the Eastern Capital9

  There were ten plaster statues of sainted monks in the Golden Hall of Hungnyun Temple. Seated with their backs against the eastern wall and facing west were Ado, Yomch'ok (Ech'adon), Hyesuk, Anham and Uisang. Seated with their backs against the western wall and facing east were P'yohun, Sapa, Wonhyo, Hyegong and Chajang.

  66. The Pedestal of the Kasop Buddha10”

  (The following involves some rather esoteric matters for which a full understanding would require some study of Buddhist scriptures, so I have not attempted an explanation here. It may help to point out that in Mahayana doctrine there were many Buddhas who had appeared at various times and who had various places and functions in its highly complex cosmology.)

  According to the old book Oknyong-chip (Jade Dragon Collection) and various biographies of Chajang and other monks, there was a pedestal of a Kasop Buddha to the south of the royal palace in the eastern part of Wolsong in Silla. This was the site of an ancient temple dating to pre-Buddhist times, on the ruins of which the present Hwangnyong Temple was built.

  In the Samguk Sagi it is written, “In February of the third year of Kae-kuk, the fourteenth year of King Chinhung (533), while a new palace was being built to the east of Wolsong, a King Dragon was observed to rise from the grounds. The King therefore converted the intended palace into a temple (Hwangnyong-sa) with the pedestal of a seated Buddha preserved behind the Sanctuary. (Hwangnyong means King Dragon.)

  “Early pilgrims who visited the temple testified that the flat-topped stone was 5.6 feet high and three arm-spans around. As the years passed, the temple was twice damaged by fire, which caused the pedestal to crack. The monks repaired it by spanning the fissures with iron joints.”

  We read in the Buddhist scripture Aham-gyong11 that the Kasop Buddha was the third highest being in Hyon-kop,12 and that he appeared in the world when he was 20,000 years old by human reckoning. In his first period of existence he enjoyed a long life of countless years, but then by the laws of the universe his physical body grew gradually younger until he had existed for 80,000 years. When he had reached the physical age of ten, his age diminished year by year. Then he began to grow older again until he was an 80,000-year-old man, when one year was added to his grey head. When he had undergone this process twenty times, he had spanned the period of one “chu-kop” during which one thousand Buddhas had been born.

  Sakyamuni (Gautama, the historical Buddha) is one of the fourth highest beings and appeared during the ninth diminishing count. From the time when Sakyamuni was one hundred years old until Kasop Buddha lived 20,000 years, 2,000,000 years had passed, and as scores of thousand years passed further before the time of Kuryuson Buddha. From the time of enjoying a long life of countless years in the beginning, how many years have passed! (There may be some confusion here. The records are unanimous in stating that Sakyamuni, the historical Buddha, passed out of earthly existence when he was eighty years old.)

  Already 2,230 years had passed from the birth of Sakyamuni until the eighteenth year of Chih-yuan of Yuan Shih-tsu (1281) and tens of thousands of years have passed from the time of the Kuryuson Buddha until today through the Kasop Buddha. (The traditional date for Buddha's birth is 563 B.C. This would make 1,844 years until 1281.)

  In his book 'Songs of Successive Chronicles' O Se-mun of Koryo said, “Counting backwards from the seventh year of Chen-yu (1219) it is 49,600 and odd years since the year of the tiger in which Panko-ssi created heaven and earth”. (Referring to a Chinese creation legend.) In the Tae-il Calendar compiled by Kim Hui-yong, the recorder in Yonhui palace, it is calculated that 1,937,641 years have passed since the year of the rat Shang-yuan Kap-ja, which was the time of the creation, and the year of the rat Yuan-feng of Sung Shen-tsung (1084) In the book T'suan-ku-t'u' the time between the creation and the Ch'unch'iu Huai-lin (477 B.C.) is stated to be 2,760,000 years. Buddhist scriptures state that the age of the stone pedestal at Hwangnyong-sa corresponds to the time from the appearance of the Kasop Buddha until today, which is but the age of an infant compared to the time since the creation. The chronological reckonings in the Songs of Successive Chronicles, the Tae-il Calendar and the 'T'suaniu-t'u' thus make the pedestal a mere baby stone.

  Song of Praise to the Pedestal of the Kasop Buddha

  The radian
t sun of Buddha has never waned from time immemorial,

  His majestic pedestal remains here as a holy being;

  How many times have the mulberry fields changed to blue sea and back again!

  The great treasure-stone still stands as in days of yore.

  IV. Pagodas and Buddhist Images

  67. The Yuk-wang Pagoda at Liaotung Fortress

  The book Sambo Kamt'ong-nok contains the following passage: “An old story told by wise old men with white hair and beards says that when King Song of Koguryo arrived at the Liaotung Fortress (modern Liaoyang in southern Manchuria) one day during an inspection of his frontiers he saw in the distance five-colored clouds above the place where an old monk stood holding a staff. In great curiosity the King bent his steps toward the place, but as he came near the monk appeared to recede, reappearing when he stopped. In this manner the King at length reached a hill, where he discovered a three-storied earthen pagoda, the top of which looked like a large inverted kettle.

  “More curious still, the King looked about for the old monk that he might obtain an explanation, but he was nowhere to be seen. But a clump of tall grasses nearby swayed and nodded their heads at the King, and he had the impression that he was to dig beneath them, The King ordered this done. When his servants had dug to a depth about equal to a man's height they came upon a staff and a pair of old straw shoes. Further digging revealed a stone monument with an inscription in Sanskrit. One of the courtiers wiped the dirt from this monument and interpreted the inscription as follows: 'Here stands a pagoda which formerly belonged to the Han empire. The name of the pagoda is P'odo-wang, whose former title was Hyudo-wang (Kum-in) and whose office it was to offer sacrifices to Heaven.' (These appear to be names of the pagoda's custodian, not of the pagoda itself.)

  “King Song erected a seven-storied wooden pagoda on the ruins of this old tower. Years later, when Buddhism was introduced into Koguryo it came to light that King Ayuk13 had tall pagodas erected everywhere in his domain of Yompu-che-ju14 and that this pagoda at Liaotung Fortress had collapsed while its upper stories were being removed to shorten it. During the years of T'ang Lung-shuo (661-664) severe battles were fought on the Liaotung peninsula. The T'ang commander, Hsueh Jen-kuei, while leading his army through an old battlefield of the Sui emperor, noticed a lonely mountain which boasted neither temple nor pagoda. He enquired of the passers-by the reason for this emptiness, and an old man replied that years before a tall pagoda had fallen into ruins on that mountain. The Chinese commander made a sketch of the place and took it with him to Changan. An explanation of this sketch is given in detail in the book Jo-han.”