Yi Ik Tomb

This is the tomb of Yi Ik (1681–1763), a great master of Silhak, or Practical Learning, in the late Joseon period. In 1705, the 31st year of King Sukjong, when Yi Ik was 25, he sat for the state examination, but was unable to take the test because his nongmyeong, the registration process that examined a candidate's qualifications and accepted the application, did not conform to proper procedure at the examination hall. The very next year his second elder brother, Yi Jam, was branded a traitor and died in prison after submitting a memorial defending Royal Consort Jang Hui-bin, and following this Yi Ik abandoned his ambition for office and devoted himself entirely to scholarship. He approached learning with an empirical and critical attitude, examined social realities in historical terms, and argued that all scholarship should be of practical use to society. In particular, he wrote the Seongho Saseol, in which he sharply criticised the local administrative system, public finance, the economy, the state examination system, the education system and the military system of his day, while also proposing reforms, thereby expounding his Silhak thought. The tomb precinct was restored in May 1967 by the Seongho Yi Ik Memorial Society, at which time a memorial stele, an offering table, an incense-burner stone, and a pair of guardian stone pillars were newly erected. The burial mound is a joint tomb holding three people: Yi Ik together with his first wife of the Goryeong Sin clan and his second wife of the Sacheon Mok clan. Beside the tomb precinct stand the shrine Cheomseongsa and the jaesil, a building erected near the tomb or shrine of a founding or distinguished ancestor for holding memorial rites, called Gyeongho-jae, and adjoining the site are Seongho Park and the Seongho Museum.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Ansan, Gyeonggi

Designation

Provincial Monument · 시도기념물