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Home , Uisang, Wonhyo

Anecdotes of Relw,wnefl Samguk Yusa '· 1 .:.>1lH ,, ,... l't I • It i' ' i" j{J J • .J'·'.l t'Jt, ,· ( u 'I : ,I , The stra?~er ~9?1Y r,eplied, ~ 'Go anq tell you~ ~aster that r am 1 1 , the Unbrid_led , ( ,. 1 "o ·I • ! t· l . i' 1 1 her~ fo s;e htm--;only fhat a9d nothing more.'~ f ' '. ) '' ~ '· / ,. I 1 .' J 1 1 I When , tq~ inpideQt was deS~f~be<;l to Chaja~g, he wondered if the ni% IT.he faQlily name1of·the sacred .~ monk Wonhyo was Sol-ssl, His !e~lo~. ~er~ a.rpadman ~qt wh~J;I they shol\te~ ath,i~ to go, the old man ,_ ,, ..~ ...... ~. was b:Igp)-kpng, .otherwise .called Choktae..,kong-;. ·whose satd ,How c~n a 1Narc~~sus see me?" .and t'}rned his. basket upside -nQw ,stands neav ChQktaeyort pool. His great-grandfather was dR'Yn. ~ut 0~ ~t~ame, not a dJeaq QUPPY ihut a,lioq op a throne, radiating ,, I ' a dazzling ltght for a moment, an? the.I?-,~the , old, ~ap vanished. (A The birth of W onhyo came about in this manner, When his m~ther ~~¥tho~ p£ P~d.dha as preeminent ~unong ,bo~q men and beasts). as neali het: time she w.as passing under a c~stn\it tr.ee to the southwest Inf< d f h · • ' • • , '·n (Villageofthe Buddha unt~l _ fie , r~~ch~fl Namnyong ,(~outh Pass), wher~ it ~~ni'shed in a m1'st ),iiud) sou.th .of Apnyaqg cQ.unty. There s,uddenly her labor pains came As t d ·d Ch · ' •· r •• ' 1 • ,.1 . I ~ s?, aJang fFil d~a,d H~ was creml}t~d th~re , and his bones ~pon · het:. As there w.as no time to reach shelter her. husband's clothes ~H shnqed .m a cav.e. , . .· ' fD . ' hi . 1. ' . . tr·J J • 't . t ~ ' t P :,f, i ~re hung from the branches of the tree to hide her from :View. The local : . I~ 1f~t~p1e C~jang 1 urwg 1 foun9ep more 1than a dozen temples folk call this chestnut tree Sala-su and its fruit Sala~yul. _It has a peculiar aQd na d d h ' '' • ;r • • 1 I I pdduw QYJC~ly . .H~~ pe[ p.y.,a,l crffcycts? including mcorded in ,the scriptures. "Sala'i is the name· of•the ttree· under which 1 1 h1s wopden ptllq.~ (carved 'Yi~h a ~ll~kp,e~!gq) ~9~ his , ~~p,e (-;mce worn Jluddha is said to have departed this life. and entered .) • 1 by B~dpha~, W~_ch , haqJ>Fen present,ep , ~~ ~im by ~~cy 1 dragqn ofT'aiho ~ ,1 TbereJis a legend that long, long. ago •an abbotnga,ve ·his temple P ~ , Buddl};istn ther.e.. · ' ' ' · · · A I I should be given f0r a meaL Since that timelthe\place.where,these chest­

;:)(JOgo'L l" o f ·p rasei'' I '.to CbajangI · r r r I ) .• • ,,. nuts grew has been called Yulgok (Chestnut Nalley).

Wh h I t . . W:hen W<:>nhyo became a monk he gave ,away his house for the • • 1 • ~ ;e":r't e, a,~oktr Jro,m a ~r~am at, Ch'ingliaqgsQan and returned foundation of a temple called Ch'ogae-sa (Temple of First Opening) Jl Jc.r'?mc;, , , .. , ! , I ., ,r and near a tree in his garden he built another temple named Sala-sa. l•·;t•,Seve,y. voluflle.s aDQ· thre~ ~~lle<.;ti<,>ns of commandments opened In his biography Wonhyo is represented as a' man ef Kyongju , br.fop;; his inwa~d eye. · because his grandfather lived there, but the T'ang Biographies of , 111 ~sljlam~d ,of the coarse robes of the courti~r~~ Monks describes him as a native of Ha-Sangju. In the second year of He reformed the dress of the East to .that of the .West. bin-te (665) King Munmu of ·divided the old land of Sangju ·and J ' I ~ ,, ' · 1 ,I Hajuto create Sapnyangju in the new territory. Haju is now ·Ch'ang-

-305- -304- Samguk Yusa Anecdotes of Renowned Monks

ny~ng coun~y a.nd Apnyang county was originally a sub-prefecture of clothes wet. When he reached the palace the princess, already in bridal HaJu. PulchJCh on was part of the Chain-hyon of today, a sub-pre­ attire, suffered him to change into a bridegroom's robes, and so they fecture of Apnyang county. were married and passed the night together. a Wonhyo's childhood names were So-tang (Pledging Flag) and Sin­ The princess became pregnant as a result, and bore a son whose tang (New Flag). On the night he was conceived his mother dreamed name was Sol Ch'ong. He was so intelligent that he mastered all the that a shooting star entered her bosom, and when he was born five­ classical histories in his youth. He composed books on folk customs colored clouds covered the earth. This was in the thirty-ninth year of and the place-names of and Silla, using the "ldu" system of King Chinp'yong of Silla (617). simplified Chinese characters as phonetic signs to convey the Korean As the boy grew into a healthy ~nd handsome youth he proved to language. Until then there had been no method of writing the Korean be an u.ncommon person. He did not study with a teacher, but knew language and people who wished to be educated had to read and write e:ery~hmg already. He was a playboy. His companions, his adventures, in Chinese, although the spoken Korean language is distinctly his Wits and his great achievements are all described in detail in the different from Chinese. T:an.g Biographies of the Monks and in his autobiography, so here we Sol Ch'ong also translated the Six Chinese Classics (Probably the wtll mclude only a few anecdotes from the Biographies of Silla. Confucian Classics are meant) into Korean by this method and wrote One day Wonhyo saw bees and butterflies flitting from flower to commentaries on them. All these have been handed down to the scho­ flower, and he fe~t a ~tr~ng ~~sire for a woman. He walked through the lars of the East (). For his virtuous deeds and literary accomplish­ streets of KyongJu smgmg, Who will lend me an axe that has lost its ments, Sol Ch'ong is acclaimed as one of the ten sages of Silla. (Un­ handle? I wish to cut a heaven-supporting pole." The passers-by fortunately, all but one of Sol Chong's works are lost.) lau.ghed at him, n~t realizing the real meaning ofhis song, but T'aejong Having broken a Buddhist commandment by his union with the (Kmg Muryol) satd when he heard it, "The love-lorn monk wants to princess and the birth of Sol Ch'ong, Wonhyo doffed his monk's robe marry a noble lady and get a wise son by her. If a sage is born, so niuch and put on secular dress, adopting the punning nickname So song Kosa the better for the country." (Little Hermit). One day he met an actor and performed a gourd dance, (~onhyo's .song alludes to a poem in the Book of Odes, one of the wearing a grotesque mask on his face. He made a utensil in the shape of Confuctan Classtcs. In this poem the axe-handle symbolizes the male sexual a gourd and called it Mu-ae (Boundless; this is an allusion to the organ, so that an axe without a handle means a widow. Wonhyo is looking Hwaom sect scriptural phrase, "Both life and death are Nirvana and for a go-between to find a widow to be his lover, and the King agrees to paradise when a sage king rules within the bounds of decorum and play. this ~art. This is one more example of Wonhyo's disregard of con­ music"). He composed a song about the gourd for this dance. Wearing ventton, smce Confucian custom forbade widows to remarry or otherwise the mask and carrying the gourd he performed his dance in every corner have to do with men.) of the country, so that even usurers and poor old bachelors (both much There was at this time a widowed princess living in Yosok Palace despised) could understand the golden sayings of Buddha and the (now a monastery, Ilyon says). The King told his servants to conduct Buddhist invocation, Na(lluami-tabul. His native place Pulji (Buddha Wonhyo to that palace, and they found that he had already descended Land), his temple Ch'ogae (First Opening) and his religious name Namsan (~outh Mountain) and-reached Munch'on-gyo, the Mosquito Wonhyo (Breaking Dawn) all refer to the first dawning of the Buddhist Stream Bndge. Here he deliberately fell into the stream and got his faith on earth.

-306- -307- I ' , ; s amg'uk Yusa ,·. Anecdotes of Renowned Monks

I I 1Wh'eri·lie wrote a comm~'ntat1 on the HwaCSin scripture lie"stopped detained for ten days, after which he was all Chit;ta an,<,i , l!nter~_q the. . Middle Iqngdom, ~pe l}rl~~ , ~rr , fffiveiliig · 1i • sb n~ aBouti Sammlle'-gyCSng. 11fe put his' ink1st'ohe and his rived at ;yangchow, the Chi1,1ese !Dilitar)J epmm~9der t}lere gfiye h,im ~· Writifig Htush'bl-i 'the two horns'ofthe' ox lie rode; and therefore people l,uxprioqs, receptioP,- Al}4,pr ,ovided l \li~ wj th }\.vi n~ guarte ~~ in t\1-,tf ,g.<;> y~rq i ealle{d""hiill1 Kaksung' (Horn two' horns' rt!pteseriteti the R:id~r) ~ 'I The ~cynt headquarters. 1M ter a fe\Y sl ~Y~ · hf! - 1yi~ ' te,i'n (J tliey charited the so·iJg together.' · rJ · ' . II whose boughs and leaves covered the whole Qf., ~\wncpq~1 · Ht~H1d ·H·~ When Wonhyo died his bones were crushed and incorpdrated into 6od, {.e. CJ;llqa) an.d jn tpe top q fwhjc~ w,~s ~ ·ph.oenj{f q~~ t.... l). e pljmbed 1 a 'fifclilce •ith ge•bf niln whicJil his so'n sm Ch'ong ~ nsliri'n ~d in' Pun­ th~ • tn; e / aJ;J.~ ~i~ . e~e,s _)V ere,, d~ed py, Manip~ , (je"'F!~ ~ saft.q rt.O ,H !Vr' h-wangLsa; wh re •he'Held a memoriaf 'service and chanted'a1dirge in his q~en emitted froPi the brain·of a kil1~ dr~gqn) l wl?-qse lj g~' rfid ~ a!ft q f~r 1 fatiler•s 1inel:nory.' As· iscsl Ch!orig' prostrafed himselt 1to' one sioe'of the and w j ~e., "W~ kiJ?g in ~qqf}er al}.A , ~.urp~isH; t };tf )id ~~ 9 r Pi f,~OP- ~~ ~~~13~ 1 image, it stidderlly 'ttimed'itshead toward bini This image is still to be wa,ted p \ltil ,'Uis~ng knoc1'ed , a~ bi,s 5~oo~. Aft~r .JiC~i~jp g_ ~ is, gue~t ~ itJ::t. seeb., witlf it'S nead' rurned;to orie •side."Eegend says that ~Stsl1Ch'ong sp,e c:;ia\ fer~tmon(Y b.e. ~aip , ~· ~n , fl , <4:ea~ l~t p igqtJ %~,1 sig ~~ ~ PL Y. HI:"• · lived in a cottage1 near d cave w'here >his father' hatl ml.ce 'lived. ,The coming." The two sat facing each , p~per . aq(jl l dj)>A u~~ slir th tr JljlY,~~C?( E ~ ruin:sl df this'cottiige 'are ·still there. !. II l ' I l d '!I 'I of the .R waom ,S~tpl ~91 t\1~ pn;>f~v-ndest d,eptJ;l.s ~ 1<;qih~y,t;9 !"''!l. ~~~~ to ·• f' 1 ' 'I I d'' I .II , ' I • I . I r I' J'll I 1 '(! I!e;llr tpe, .intelligrl}.t ,wo x;ds o£ u ; sang, , J~11P o~ P~91am~,. tlt~tt).u ~~ Y~.~~ ~~f , "' ~~g . of.~ai.~). ~ WW:JbiYo 1 "! 111,1 · , ! ,' 1 11 outsh,one him oq 1 p1.~ny poi~ ts of Bud.dh.i ~t, spr!p~tpre.,rr .I JH? 1 , 1 '" 1 'J ' 1"His' ox;homs·unveiled the mystery of' Sammae-gyong; I' ... , At-this time ~e Silla),¥i ~ister~ ~i~ !fu~-J,qn (~;9-otn~r. l;>H9.k. ! ~,~Y~ tu • Hts gohrd ' danc~ awoke 1tliJ un'derwhrld o'holy ' thin~s. . · Kjm Jn,mufl, Ily~I}.I}.?~) ~nd Y!lng- ~p }Ve~e , q~t}li ~ed r ~ll ~~qgap, , J.?y. .... , · 'In the'l'li'O'orilit Jade he enjoyed a· spring dreani and was Pala~ T'ii9g 1I;:IJ1p~ro ;~; , K~iip.-tsvJ?.g, , ,w,ho w~s JPllJpnjng J o·1a ~! !Wls - fl.\\1' . w.J.~J;l. -~ 1,.1.. 'gorie , . ·'" r111 •. 1. ··~~ •. ,, •. • · .,, •• , '1 , •. , large, armY<. , ;Ois~ng >VIlS, informed of this by ~~~-~un, .~ P,'? , JJrg~ JYtq !,n O've'r ·tnb> cl'osed'Punhwang Temple his shadow dances alone. t<;>, retqrn hpll!e, a~ .qnce and • w,a ~n ~e. c<;>ur,t. 1TP,.e .rnfgr,