Sameungak Pavilion

This building enshrines the spirit tablets of the Three Hermits (Sameun) who upheld their loyalty to Goryeo: Poeun Jeong Mong-ju, Mogeun Yi Saek, and Yaeun Gil Jae. Jeong Mong-ju was a Goryeo civil official and scholar who placed first in the state civil service examination in 1360 and entered the Yemungwan, an office responsible for drafting royal edicts and records, in 1362; he also joined Yi Seong-gye in a campaign against the Jurchen. Yi Saek was a civil official and scholar of late Goryeo who travelled to Yuan China in 1348, the fourth year of King Chungmok, became a government student at the Gukjagam, the national Confucian academy, and studied Neo-Confucianism there. Holding that, in the transition from Yuan to Ming, the Mandate of Heaven had passed to the Ming dynasty, he supported a pro-Ming policy, and sought to understand Buddhism from a Confucian standpoint. Gil Jae was a scholar active from the end of Goryeo into the early Joseon period. He entered the Gukjagam in 1374, the twenty-third year of King Gongmin, and passed the saengwon licentiate examination; in 1383, the ninth year of King U, he also passed the samagam examination. In 1390, the second year of King Chang, he resigned his official post and returned to his hometown of Seonsan to care for his aged mother, and devoted himself afterwards to teaching younger scholars. He died at the age of sixty-seven, and later generations came to call him, together with Yi Saek and Jeong Mong-ju, the Three Hermits of Goryeo. In 1399, the first year of King Jeongjong of Joseon, the former Goryeo official Yu Bang-taek held a chohonje, a rite summoning the spirits of the deceased, for the Three Hermits at this site. The following year, Yi Jeong-gan, Magistrate of Gongju, built a hall here and held rites solely for the Three Hermits, naming it Sameundan. During the reign of King Sejo, Yu Bang-taek, Yi Sung-in and Na Gye-jong were added, bringing the number honoured to six, though the hall kept its original name, Sameungak.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Gongju, Chungnam

Designation

Cultural Heritage Material · 문화유산자료