Stele of Buddhist Monk Jijeung at Bongamsa Temple, Mungyeong

The stele of the State Preceptor Doheon, the Great Master Jijeung, founder of the Huiyangsan school, one of the Nine Mountain schools of Seon. Its size and the carving of its tortoise base and dragon capstone show the typical style and technique of late Unified Silla. The inscription outlines Silla Buddhist history in three periods and records in detail Doheon's lineage through Daoxin, Beomnang, Sinhaeng, Junbeom and Hyeeun, making it an important primary source for the Buddhist history, especially the Seon history, of late Silla. The inscription was composed by Choe Chi-won, the great scholar and writer of his day; with his inscriptions for the Great Sungboksa stele, the stele of the Monk Nanghye at the Seongjusa Temple Site in Boryeong (a national treasure) and the stele of the Seon Master Jingam at Ssanggyesa in Hadong (a national treasure), it is one of the Four Mountain Inscriptions, whose scholarly value has long been prized. It gives the date the stele was raised and names the monk Hyegang of Bunhwangsa as the one who wrote and carved the characters, which makes it important for the history of Korean calligraphy. Unlike other biographical sources, Choe arranged Jijeung's life as six marvels and six virtues, describing each with examples, a feature of biographical writing found in no other inscription. The inscription also holds much information on late Silla personal and place names, official titles, temple names, institutions and customs. It reveals the Silla idea that all land belonged to the king and the procedure for donating land to temples; it states clearly that the founding of the late Silla Seon schools depended on the backing of local magnates, and names the patrons of the stele. It is also the only Silla stele that shows the actual offices running a temple. And it records the sodo, the sacred precinct of Baekje, the only such record in Korea. For all these reasons it is regarded as an ancient stele of great value, not only as a biography of Jijeung but for the study of ancient Korean cultural history — Silla Seon, calligraphy and literature in classical Chinese.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Mungyeong, Gyeongbuk

Designation

National Treasure · 국보