The Miracle of White Blood
Wind, campfire and river sounds change with every scene, and the music follows the story.
In the last episode, we met King Jijeung of Silla. Taking the throne at sixty-four, he banned the burial of the living with the dead and encouraged plowing with oxen, and in 503 he fixed the kingdom’s name as “Silla” and the ruler’s title as “king.” In 512, the general Isabu used a ruse of wooden lions to make Usan in the East Sea surrender. In 514, King Jijeung was succeeded by his eldest son, Wonjong.
Characters
named Wonjong
Twenty-two in the Samguk Yusa
Name from the hyangjeon in the Samguk Yusa
A figure of legend
the Gaya state at Gimhae
In 514, King Jijeung died, and his eldest son, Wonjong, took the throne.
The Samguk Sagi recorded that the new king stood seven cheok tall, and that he was generous and cared for people.
In the first month of 520, the king promulgated the yullyeong, the kingdom’s law code, and for the first time set the robes officials were to wear (gongbok).
shall rule the kingdom!
From the highest rank down, officials wore purple, crimson, blue and yellow.
In 524, a stele was raised in Geobeolmora, a village on the East Sea coast.
60 or 100 strokes of the rod!
On the stele, the names of the nobles who decided the matter were carved side by side with that of the king, “Mojeukji Maegeum-wang.” The king still decided affairs of state together with the nobles.
About a hundred years before, it is said, neither the king nor the officials of this kingdom knew what incense was called.
In King Nulji’s time, when the monk Mukhoja came from Goguryeo to Ilseon County (today’s Seonsan, Gumi), Morye made a cave-like room in his house and let him stay there.
and your devotion will reach
the divine.
When Mukhoja burned incense and prayed, it is said, the grave illness of the king’s daughter was soon cured.
In King Soji’s time, the monk Ado came to Morye’s house with three attendants.
what are they reading?
Ado died a few years later, but as the attendants who remained read the sutras, believers appeared one by one.
I have longed to build a place where my people
can gain blessings and wash away sin.
When the king said he would build a temple at Cheongyeongnim, his officials shook their heads.
a sacred forest since ancient times.
A temple? Unthinkable!
The officials held up only the great principles of governing the realm and would not follow the king’s wish to build a temple.
Ichadon, keeping watch at his side, knew the king’s heart from his face alone.
The Samguk Yusa tells of a secret pact the two made that night.
on which I stake my life.
and have me beheaded.
and none will dare
defy the teaching.
to save a single bird.
how could I kill you,
who have done no wrong!
nothing is harder than life.
in the evening
takes hold by morning—
already means to soar into the heavens…
The Samguk Sagi has no story of a secret pact. It records that Ichadon said, “Behead me, and let that settle the debate.”
And then the day came.
The Samguk Yusa dated it to 527,
the Samguk Sagi to 528.
According to the hyangjeon quoted in the Samguk Yusa, Ichadon began building the temple, claiming it was “the king’s order.”
A temple will rise in this forest!
The king put on all his majesty, posted soldiers with swords and spears on every side, and summoned his officials.
stand in the way of my temple?
The Samguk Sagi says the officials answered with one voice:
dress strangely,
and say outlandish things!
we cannot obey
that order!
can there be an extraordinary deed.
yet you alone say otherwise.
…Take him away!
At last the king handed him over to the officers to be beheaded.
The officers bound him and dragged him off to the government office.
a wonder will surely
follow my death!
In the end, the king did not hold him back.
Milk-White Blood
A story told in the Samguk Sagi and the Samguk Yusa
When he was beheaded, it is said, blood as white as milk spurted from the wound as high as a man.
The Samguk Yusa says the sky went dark, the earth shook, and flowers rained down.
It is also said that springs ran dry, fish leapt, and straight trees were the first to break.
The hyangjeon even tells that his head flew off and landed on the summit of Mount Geumgang to the north.
The Samguk Yusa says the king wept so bitterly that his tears soaked his robe.
The Samguk Sagi closes its account of that day like this:
All marveled at it,
and none spoke ill of Buddhism again.
衆怪之 不復非毁佛事 — Samguk Sagi
They buried him on the western ridge of the North Mountain, Mount Geumgang.
Those who had loved him chose a good site, it is said, and built a temple there called Jachusa.
In 532, Kim Gu-hae, king of Geumgwan, came with his queen and three sons, bringing the kingdom’s treasures, and surrendered.
Your old kingdom shall be your fief.
The king gave him a high rank. His youngest son, Mu-ryeok, later rose to Gakgan, and Mu-ryeok’s grandson was Kim Yu-sin.
In 535, the trees of Cheongyeongnim were felled on a grand scale, and work on the temple began. Every beam and pillar came from that forest.
In 536, Silla for the first time used a name of its own for counting the years (an era name): “Geonwon.”
In the seventh month of 540, in autumn, King Beopheung died.
The kingdom gave him a name meaning “he raised up the Dharma”:
“Beopheung (法興).”
Heungnyunsa, the temple at Cheongyeongnim, was completed four years later, in 544.
In 817, about 290 years later, people restored his tomb and raised a great monument.
On the fifth day of every month, it is said, the monks of Heungnyunsa and the people gathered at his tomb to honor his spirit.
Of the two men, the Samguk Yusa wrote:
Without this king, there would be no such subject;
without this subject, no such deed.
無是君無是臣 無是臣無是功 — Samguk Yusa
The throne passed to Sammaekjong, King Beopheung’s nephew and also his grandson through his daughter. He was King Jinheung.
