Korea (Hamilton)/Chapter 19

Game abounds in the region between the German mines and the Diamond Mountains, and as we moved slowly forward to the famous Monastery of Chang-an, many short halts were made in search of birds and deer. Unfortunately, the deer evaded us and it became impossible to put up the pheasants out of the dense growth in the bushes in which they found cover. We had, however, some sport among the wood-pigeon. Korean hunters accompanied us some little distance upon our journey, leaving our caravan when our ways diverged. Beyond the Hai-yong River their track lay to the west into the heart of the mountains; our own continued north-east.

The hardships, experienced in travelling through Korea, were exemplified by the difficulties of our progress. They were intensified, however, by our ignorance of the precise trail, which it was necessary to follow across the heights from Tong-ko-kai to the mountain retreat of the pious monks. The inhabitants of the village of To-chi-dol warned our grooms of the difficulty of taking horses across the Tan-bal-yang Pass, the one barrier, which remained ​unsurmounted, between the outside world and the quiet repose of the first monastery in the Keum-kang-san. Until we enforced our orders with sticks the mampus were inclined to give up the enterprise. Their opposition was momentary; the transition from a somewhat angry mood into their usual condition of unruffled composure and high spirits was instantaneous. With untiring energy and patience they encouraged their diminutive ponies to climb the boulders; to twist and wriggle between the clumps of tangled bushes and masses of rock which beset the path, and to scramble across the steeps. We followed a dried-up watercourse at the level of the valley, making the ascent gradually. The climb was severe, and became so steep that the pack-saddles slipped off the backs of the ponies. It occupied our eight animals some four hours, testing the endurance of pony and groom, alike the product of the hills, stout of limb and strong of wind.
THE ABBOT OF CHANG-AN-SA

The descent from the spirit shrine, in a gap on the crest of the range, was less toilsome. The grooms plaited ropes of green creepers, plucked from the bush, and strung them ​round the packs. Walking behind the ponies, they held to these cords, thus supporting the animals and preventing the loads and clumsy saddles from reversing the process of the previous scramble. Nevertheless, our path was littered with fragments of our baggage. The contrivance was successful, however, and in the main the little steeds picked their way with an easy accuracy through the cool green woods. The mountain side was fragrant with innumerable plants, the bush a tangle of magnificent ferns, trees, and shrubs. Oaks, hawthorn, chestnut, birch and pines grew in crowded splendour; the wild rose, the freckled lily, and a purple orchid embroidered the moss. Beyond the hollows of the hilly woodlands, the crumpled backs of the jagged mountains reared themselves skyward, their proud crests lost in the clouds, soaring silently to a height of five thousand feet. Below in the valley, a wall of granite mountains set up an impenetrable barrier before a noisy river, which until the advent of the rainy season becomes the merest trickle of silver in a lone expanse of river-bed.

Our way lay across the river-bed and thence into the centre of the mountains, a journey of one more day, to The Temple of Eternal Rest. After crossing the Tan-bal-yang Pass we delayed, resting at Kal-kan-i. Starting at daybreak, upon the next morning we moved through the Kak-pi Pass as the sun touched the tops of the mountains, which shut in the narrow valley, across which lay the last stage of the journey. We were nearing the last home of many distressed pilgrims. In a cleft among the mountains the deep curved roofs of many temples might be seen. The air was tremulous with the pleasant jangling of bells, and from a wayside shrine the sweet fumes of incense mingled with the scent of the pines. The calm and seclusion of this ​spiritual retreat was in itself soothing; as one passed beneath the red gate, that indicates royal patronage, the placid gentleness of the scene was an allurement to the consolation and protection offered by this Buddhistic asylum.

There are thirty-four monasteries, and monastic shrines in the Keum-kang-san, and they are tended by three hundred monks and sixty nuns. Chang-an is the oldest, and has been in existence for some generations. In 515 A.D., during the reign of Po-pheung, a king of Silla, it was restored by two monks, Yul-sa and Chin-kyo. Other monasteries, akin to this in their romantic setting and picturesque seclusion, are Pyo-un, which, together with Chang-an is situated upon the western slopes, Yu-chom and Sin-ga upon the eastern slopes. These, with thirty others of less importance, excite the most profound interest and enthusiasm among the Koreans, many of whom repeatedly brave the difficulties and fatigues of travel in the Diamond Mountains to visit them.

The four chief monasteries are served by one hundred and seventy monks and thirty nuns. The main temple of Chang-an is a large building, forty-eight feet in height, of the type to which travellers in the East soon become accustomed. The wooden structure is rectangular with two roofs, deep, curved and richly carved eaves, the heavy tiled roofs being supported upon teak pillars three feet in circumference. The diamond-cut panels of the doors, which serve as windows, are ornamented with gold, and the lofty ceiling is carved and wrought in rich designs, lavishly gilded and highly coloured in blue, red, green and gold. Granite steps give access to the temples; the main beams and supports of the whole edifice resting upon huge circular slabs of this stone.

On the inner walls of this building there are scenes ​from the life of Gautama, the apostle of the Buddhistic creed. A gilded image figures as the centre of a golden group of seven past and future godheads, incarnations of the One and sublime Sakya-muni, whose future reappearance is anticipated by the faithful. Brass incense-burners, candlesticks, and a manuscript book of masses in Chinese and Korean characters, resting upon a faded cover of soiled and dusty brocade, furnish the front of the altar. Before this high altar, wonderfully impressive and inspiring in the dim religious light of the vast interior, a priest spends certain hours of the day and night in profound obeisance, intoning, chanting and gabbling monotonously and with constant genuflections, the words Na-mu Ami Tabul. This expression is a phonetic rendering of certain Thibetan words, the meaning of which the Abbot himself was unable to explain; when transcribed in Chinese characters it appears equally unintelligible.

Other temples in this particular monastery are dedicated to The Abode of Virtue, The Four Sages, and The Ten Judges. Within these edifices Sakya-muni and his disciples sit in different attitudes of ineffable abstraction, contemplating gruesome pictures of demons, animals, and the torments awarded in after-life to the wicked. Many of the buildings of Chang-an have been restored within recent years. The work has been completed long since, and the spacious courtyards are now well kept. The temples are clean and spotless, the whole monastery bearing witness to the care with which it is maintained.

Besides the more important temples, there are many smaller shrines, set within some forest nook; a stage for the more important religious observances, bell and tablet houses, stables for the ponies of the numerous visitors, a ​nunnery and a refectory for the Abbot and monks. There are, in addition, cells for the priests and quarters for the servants. Accommodation is found for the widows, orphans, and the destitute; for the lame, the halt, and the blind; for the aged and forlorn, to whom the monks grant shelter and protection. Besides the Abbot, there were in the monastery some twenty other men, monks, priests and neophytes, and ten nuns of various ages, ranging from girl hood to wrinkled wisdom.

The establishment derives its revenues from the rent and proceeds of the Church lands, donations from pilgrims and guests, occasional benefactions from the wealthy, and the collections made by the mendicant monks. These latter chant the litanies of Buddha from house to house, and travel throughout the Empire, finding food and lodging by the wayside, to collect the scanty contributions which their solicitations evoke. The four great monasteries are presided over by a member of the community, who is elected annually to the office. Unless his conduct gives rise to dissatisfaction, he is maintained in authority, usually until his death, or transference to some other centre of Buddhistic activity. The practices and observances, in these monasteries of the Diamond Mountains, conform to the principles of the religion of Buddha, as nearly as do the customs and manners of our own Church to the varied tenets of Christianity throughout the world.

I confess myself sorely puzzled to discover any substratum of truth in the charges of gross profligacy and irreverence which the agent of an American Missionary Society brings against the monasteries of the Keum-kang-san. Personally, after spending many weeks in the calm seclusion of this monastic region, I prefer to recall the ​kindliness of the monks—their real Christian charity—to the poor and afflicted, to the hungry and sore distressed, as to all who come to them in times of misery and evil. If many of them learn the litanies of their liturgy by heart, if they lack scholarship, if they do not know the meaning of much upon which they spend so many weary hours of their lives, are not these slight things when weighed against their profound humanity, their gentleness to everything which breathes, their benevolence to the old and destitute, their exceeding humility, their wonderful toleration, the quietness and extreme simplicity of their lives, and the humanitarian nature of their interests?

The Monastery of Yu-chom is all peace and quietude. It lies, shut off from all contact with the outer world, within a deep, tree-clad valley of the eastern ranges. It is self-contained, and its whole existence is wrapped up in the mysteries of that faith to whose services it is dedicated. There is no booming torrent, such as that which vibrates and thunders through the Chang-an-sa gorge; a subdued babble alone rises from the water, which wells from some rocks deep in the recesses of the prevailing bush. Its appearance is strangely solemn, and it exerts over the daily lives of the coterie of monks, assembled within its walls, an influence that conduces to their extreme asceticism. The atmosphere of repose and seclusion, in which a soul distressed finds so much comfort, broods over the whole community.

The most imposing of the thirty-four Buddhist retreats within the Diamond Mountains is Yu-chom-sa. It may be approached from the western side of the Keum-kang-san by climbing the rocky path of the Chang-an-sa gorge, and crossing the watershed through ​the An-man-chai Pass, 4215 feet in height. The descent is made by a rough and picturesque track through deep

woods to the cluster of temples upon the eastern face of the range. Another way, which, after a short détour from Chang-an-sa, is an easier route, lies over the Pu-ti-chong ​Pass, 3700 feet in height; after winding through some miles of forest, it drops directly upon a track, which leads to the gates of the monastery. Each road starts from Chang-an-sa, and the crossing of the mountains must be undertaken by all who wish to visit the monasteries upon the eastern slopes. The journey in either direction can be accomplished within eight hours; the difficulties of the bed of the Chang-an-sa torrent render this route impassable to horses, &c. Lightly-loaded ponies can be taken across the Pu-ti-chong. The hire of coolies is recommended and one Korean dollar for each man is the tariff.

The temples of Yu-chom-sa are very similar to those at Chang-an-sa. They are, however, more numerous and more richly endowed. Before the steps of the main temple there is a small granite pagoda, whose graceful proportions give an element of dignity to the spacious courtyard upon which the principal temples of the monastery abut. The altar of this temple is adorned by a singular piece of wood-carving. Upon the roots of an upturned tree sit or stand fifty-three diminutive figures of Buddha. The monks tell an old-world legend of this strange structure. Many centuries ago, fifty-three priests, who had journeyed from India to Korea to introduce the precepts of Buddha into this ancient land, sat down by a well beneath a spreading tree. Three dragons presently emerged from the depths of the well and attacked the fifty-three, calling to their aid the wind-dragon, who thereupon uprooted the tree. As the fight proceeded, the priests managed to place an image of Buddha upon each root of the tree, converting the whole into an altar, under whose influence the dragons were forced back into their cavernous depths, when huge rocks were piled into the well to shut them up. The monks then ​founded the monastery, building the main temple above the remains of the vanquished dragons. Upon each side of the fantastic altar-piece there is a carved design of lotus leaves several feet in width and height; at the feet of an immense image of the divine Buddha, golden and bejewelled, which graces the centre of the shrine, are several magnificent bronze bowls of vast size, weight, and antiquity. Blue and red silk-gauze draperies, serving the purpose of a screen, hang from the massive beams in the roof.

The figures seen in Korean temples are reproduced in Buddhist temples throughout Asia, the supreme and central form being that of Sakya-muni or Buddha. In the sculpture and artistic development of this, the central figure of their pantheon, there is little, if any, deviation from the conventional traditions of India, Siam, Thibet, and Mongolia. The sage is crouching on his knees with the souls of his feet turned upward to the face; the palms and fingers of his hands pressed together; the eyes are slightly oblique, and the lobes of the ears somewhat bulbous. The throne consists of the open calyx of a lotus flower, the symbol of eternity. The splendour of the figures in the Temple of the Tree of Buddha is noticeable; and the lustre of the heavy gilding gleams from about the altar into the dimness and uncertain light of the vast chamber like the rays of some spiritual fire. Devotional exercises never cease in this House of the Ever-Supreme Lord, the services and constant offering of prayer being taken in turn by the officiating priests. At these moments, when the lonely figure of the priest is seen pleading with the Ever-Supreme Lord, in his most sacred Temple and before his most sacred shrine, for the grace of forgiveness, the scene is one of the most extraordinary solemnity. As the chant rises and falls in ​the great spaces of the hall and the swaying figure rocks in the despair of his passionate self-abandonment the sympathies and emotions are strangely stirred. The stages of the services are marked by blows upon a bell which the priest holds before him, the while he casts himself upon his face and kneels before the resplendent Buddha.

The chief celebrations of the day and night in Yu-chom-sa are accompanied by the booming of the great bronze bell—an elaborate casting of the fourteenth century—and by the beating of a large circular drum many feet in circumference. Both instruments stand in their own towers in the courtyard. During the minor services, the genuflections of the priests are accompanied by the jarring notes of the small brass bells, which they strike repeatedly with deer-horns. A magnificent figure of Buddha sits in the Temple of the Lotus Blossom, in an attitude of impassive benignity behind a screen of glass, looking solemnly upon the devotions and pious exercises of his faithful attendants. This altar is recessed, the entire shrine being protected by plates of glass, and the offerings of rice, which are presented to the altar for benediction, stand without the screen. Among other temples and shrines at Yu-chom-sa there are the House of Everlasting Life, the Temple of the Water Month, the Temple of People who come from the West. There are fifty monks in Yu-chom-sa, twelve nuns, and eight boys who have not yet been admitted to the order. Many of the boys in these monasteries are quite young. Some have been handed over by their parents in extreme infancy, while others have been received out of the wide charity of the Buddhists, and dedicated to the service of the monasteries. These boys ​appear intelligent. They are taught little beyond the different chants and litanies, with the words of which they soon become familiar. The boys are clean and well fed; but the monks, if equally clean, are more

sparing in their diet. Their frugal repast consists of rice and varieties of minced vegetables, cakes of pine nuts glued together with honey, and other cakes of popped rice and honey. The extreme richness of the dishes soon palls upon the palate. While managing to exist, signs of emaciation are noticeable in their bodies and faces. Among the nuns who are attracted to these different monasteries, there are many who have entered the cloister from religious motives, and a few who, alone in the world, find it a convenient spot in which to pass their lives. Neither class, however, encroaches upon the religious and devotional functions of ​the monks, but lives entirely apart, existing altogether in a world of their own making.

The forms of religion which prevail in Korea to-day are Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shamanism. Statements of ancient Chinese and Japanese writers, and the early Jesuit missionaries, tend to prove that the worship of spirits and demons has been the basis of national belief since the earliest times. The god of the hills is even now the most popular deity. Worship of the spirits of heaven and earth, of the invisible powers of the air, of nature, of the morning star, of the guardian genii of the hills and rivers, and of the soil and grain, has been so long practised that, in spite of the influences of Confucianism, and the many centuries in which Buddhism has existed in the land, the actual worship of the great mass of the people has undergone little material alteration. However widespread this leaning of the lower classes towards demonolatry may be, the philosophy of Confucius has been from the fifteenth century the official and fashionable cult in Korea. In its middle period, it attained to that point when a religion, which at first was fostered by the few and has spread gradually until it became absorbed by the people, feels itself firmly established, and emphasises its ascendency by the bigotry of its assertions, its intolerance, and, crowning triumph of all usurping tenets, by the virulence of its persecution. Confucianism now overspreads the whole peninsula. From the fourth to the fourteenth century, when the religion of the Enlightened One prevailed, it was studied and practised only by the learned classes. Buddhism predominated throughout the southern half of the peninsula, and only partially leavened the northern division of the Empire, where it was unable to combat the teachings of ​Confucius. Throughout its development, however, Buddhism has exercised a potent influence in Korean affairs, which continued until the close of the last dynasty. The power of the bonzes at one time controlled the Court and nullified

the decrees of the monarch. During its pristine supremacy it became the strongest and most formidable factor in the education of the country. It wielded unlimited and unrestricted power, while it guided the political and social revolutions of the period. Great respect is still shown to the tenets of Buddhism in Korea. New monasteries and temples are in process of construction—the Buddhist priests of Japan and Korea making common cause against the activities of Western missionaries. The Emperor has also shown himself interested in the propagation of this faith, and, with Lady Om, he has given large sums to the restoration of certain dilapidated temples without the city. All things ​considered, Buddhism has left such a mark upon the history of the little kingdom that, although the purely ethical character of the teachings of Confucius be acknowledged, Korea must be classed among the Buddhist countries of the earth.