IV. The Origins of Hoeamsa
Hoeamsa, like Geumgangsan, is a temple that has hitherto received little attention but leaves very many questions. Although Hoeamsa was the largest-scale temple in Korean history, a temple that Jigong—the greatest figure in the international Buddhist community—personally built after giving a prophecy designating it as a place of ascetic practice of a Buddha of the past, and a temple that played a decisive role in Joseon history, it has been examined only from the Buddhist aspect.[22] The point that has hitherto received little attention regarding Hoeamsa is the background of its rise to prominence in the early Joseon period.[23] Although the period background against which Hoeamsa came to be built as the largest temple in Korean history has been studied, the background against which, after its construction, it came to prominence down into the Joseon period through the Great Master Muhak and Taejo Yi Seong-gye has hardly been illuminated.[24]
The site of Hoeamsa is a place that the Great Master Jigong (指空), who had been an Indian prince, visited—spending some two years—for the remains of the Dhammugal Bodhisattva of Geumgangsan, at the urging of Naong and the Great Master Muhak, who had gone to study in Beijing, China, while Jigong was revered in Beijing as an incarnation of Śākyamuni and was serving the Yuan royal house.[25] At the site of Hoeamsa, Jigong said that this place resembled Seocheon Aranbulsa, an Indian place of ascetic practice of a Buddha of the past, and in later ages the place where Kāśyapa Buddha preached the Dharma came to be regarded not only as Seocheon Aranbulsa but also as the site of Hoeamsa. As grounds for this, he called the site of Hoeamsa the Three Mountains and Two Waters (samsan yangsu), consisting of three mountains and two waters. In the Three Mountains and Two Waters, the two waters were identified with the Imjin River and the Han River, and the three mountains with Samgaksan. In fact, today's Hoeamsa lies between Cheonbosan, Haeryongsan, and Wangbangsan, with Pocheon and Dongducheon in its surroundings. Although there is also research holding that the very term "site of Kāśyapa Buddha" is a trace of Dangun,[26] the Three Mountains and Two Waters carries yet more meaning in that it includes not only the sense of an auspicious site but also the Yin-Yang and Five Phases concept of samcheon yangji (three heavens and two earths).
That Hoeamsa is a monastery site of the age of former Buddhas is said to be the highest status in Korean Buddhism, one that even Bulguksa did not receive in the past. On this point, existing research also holds that Hoeamsa's being a monastery site of the age of former Buddhas is an exaggeration of Jigong's words made in order to save Hoeamsa, which had fallen into crisis of dissolution after Naong's death.[27] However, Jigong personally designated the site to his disciple Naong, and although it was built by King Gongmin, for some reason it was held in very great importance down to the early Joseon period. This can be understood as an extension of the interpretation of the Dhammugal Bodhisattva.
First, Kāśyapa Buddha is the sixth of the seven Buddhas said to appear in the age of Śākyamuni Buddha—the Buddha immediately preceding Śākyamuni. As mentioned above, the very concept of Buddhas of the past is already related to pre-Buddhist culture. Kāśyapa Buddha appears in Korean ancient history as Gaseobwon Buyeo, and in modern place names too there is the Caspian Sea in the Middle East. That Hoeamsa was held in importance down into the Joseon period may be said to involve an intention different from Jigong's intention.
Hoeamsa is, first of all, connected with the Wihwado Retreat. Like Napoleon's Battle of Waterloo, the decisive occasion of the Wihwado Retreat is said to have been the information reported by the Great Master Muhak, who had gone to spy on the Yuan dynasty. He was known as the Great Master "Muhak (無學)," meaning that he had learned nothing, but in fact Muhak was of the faction that had studied in Beijing, then the center of the world, and was a figure who served as his masters Jigong and Naong, the greatest intellects of the age. The Great Master Muhak is identified as the figure who early on met Yi Seong-gye and planned Joseon; Muhak appears as a figure erudite in ancient history who had the country's name chosen as "Joseon" and had the palaces of Seoul, such as Gyeongbokgung, built in accordance with astronomy.[28] Muhak is even regarded as being of the Yeonghae Bak clan, a family through which Bak Je-sang's Budoji had been transmitted. In the end, Muhak may be seen as having planned the reconstruction of Hoeamsa together with Naong as a scheme for the revival of ancient history. Cheonbosan, where Hoeamsa is located, is also related to Haengchon Yi Am, the epicenter of the Dangun faith revived from the late Goryeo period.
Another link between the Great Master Muhak and ancient history is a passage of the Muhakgyeol transmitted at Geumsansa. The Muhakgyeol was originally content about geomancy (feng shui), and because the Great Master Muhak is said to have composed it, it is called the "Muhakgyeol." In that text "Cheonhwang, Jihwang, Inhwang" (the Heavenly, Earthly, and Human Sovereigns) is mentioned,[29] and it connects Geumsansa and Geumgangsan by the phrase "the great gold mountain under Heaven" (天下之大金山). The background by which the Great Master Muhak was able to connect Geumgangsan and Hoeamsa is said to have taken as its precedent the past connecting by Jajang of Korea's Odaesan with the Odaesan of the Indian bodhisattva Mañjuśrī. In particular, he is also said to have emphasized the point that, whereas Odaesan was aristocratic, Geumgangsan was popular.[30]
To the extent that the Great Master Muhak showed an obsession with the revival of ancient history, the Geumgangsan of Korean ancient history has undergone ups and downs since the age of the Yellow Emperor / Dangun. The thunder faith of Geumgangsan was transmitted to China as the thunder-magic faith (nwebeop),[31] and the principle of the sun and Venus was propagated as Yin-Yang and the Five Phases.[32] The sun and Venus, as the origin of the dragon-and-phoenix culture, are such that the movement of the sun relates to the phoenix through Yin-Yang, and the movement of Venus relates to the Five Phases and hence to the dragon. This is found today even in the Sumerian Middle East and in America.[33] The place name Hoeamsa (檜巖寺) too would be related to the fir tree, but it emphasizes the tree, wood (木), as in Dangun.
What connects Geumsansa with Geumgangsan is the Battle of Baekchon River in 663, before the founding of Geumsansa. The Battle of Baekchon River seems to have concluded at the winter solstice of 663, a four-sexagenary-cycle day that comes around once every 1,980 years.[34] The Battle of Baekchon River, the last battle of Baekje, was the first international war in East Asia, in which the Silla-Tang allied forces defeated the Baekje-Goguryeo-Japan allied states. That a battle centered on the small Baekje in the western part of today's Korean Peninsula is called an international war is because, it is said, the history of Baekje—which at that time had a chance of victory in fighting the Tang dynasty—has undergone much distortion today.[35] Baekje was defeated by Silla, but in the ensuing battle between Silla and Tang it sided with Silla and repelled the Tang. Thereafter the maritime-kingdom technology of Baekje contributed to Silla's inheriting the Land-of-the-Gentlemen image of Gojoseon.[36] Japan's Kyūshū calls to mind the Nine Provinces (九州) culture of Dangun.[37] In commemoration of Baekje, Geumsansa was built, and Maitreya was erected by Jinpyo, who had built Geumsansa on Geumgangsan, connected with Geumsansa. The phrase "after the Heavenly, Earthly, and Human Sovereigns, the great gold mountain under Heaven" that appears in the Great Master Muhak's Muhakgyeol can be understood in the same context.
If we reinterpret Byeon Gwang-hyeon's theory, the Battle of Baekchon River was a battle possessing the principle whereby the peoples who had spread out with Geumgangsan at their center once again return to the origin (wonsi banbon). The dragon-and-phoenix culture that sprouted in our country—which had the largest tidal flats in the world in the age of Fuxi, before 4000 BC—spread out to all parts of the world.[38] These peoples formed the Sumerians, the Aryans, and the Slavs, and after each living separately, gathered again at Geumgangsan owing to climate change.[39] Traces of that time remain even in Africa, and there is also research holding that the language most similar to modern Korean is Kinyarwanda of Africa.[40] Jeong Hyeong-jin says that the people who first began to return again to the Korean Peninsula at that time were the Gonggong people of the Shennong lineage.[41] Oh Gwang-gil regards this Gonggong people as of the Sumerian lineage. Jeong Hyeong-jin says that the second to migrate were the Hwanung people, who had the bear totem, and that Dangun too is connected with them.[42] Oh Gwang-gil regards these as the Aryans and says that the Aryans had the bear totem. Combining with the bear-totem people who were already there, they are said to have had conflict with the tiger totem.[43] In the West, Lacouperie, who wrote The Emperor Who Came from Babylonia,[44] and Luo Binji and Kim Jae-seop, who analyzed records of the bronze inscriptions, explain this period in detail.[45]
Again, according to Byeon Gwang-hyeon's theory, owing to the climate change that appears in the records of the time of Emperor Yao, the former civilization fell, and the representative races of the world's population gathered at Geumgangsan. At that time the sunlight shone only on Geumgangsan, and that sunlight gradually broadened so that the Geumgangsan civilization spread out again—this being, it is said, the migration of comb-pattern pottery and dolmens. Through this, world civilization was revived once more and reached the Axial Age. That the Venus goddess Venus—Astarte—is distributed in the Middle East has its reason here.[46] The Battle of Baekchon River may be seen as the defeat of the Geumgangsan civilization when the civilization that had left Geumgangsan returned once again.[47] Thereafter Korean history maintained a level of national strength sufficient to guard Geumgangsan. Even today North Korea is, unintentionally, playing the role of guarding Geumgangsan. In geomantic theory it is said that the earth-energy (地氣) too must be guarded if it is to be manifested in the right place at the right time.
Muhak, who was as versed in geomancy as in Buddhism, joined forces with Yi Seong-gye in the restoration of ancient history, and this can be regarded as the background of Hoeamsa's rise to prominence. That the place Yi Seong-gye chose to practice asceticism even after the Strife of the Princes was Hoeamsa, and that he had it built in a style like that of a royal palace, shows his will for the restoration of ancient history. In fact, throughout the Joseon dynasty this will for restoration was expressed internally, and it is said that in the time of King Gojong, when Qing was defeated in the Sino-Japanese War, they sought to restore ancient history by restoring the octagonal pavilions throughout the country. In the Joseon period, after Yulgok, the representative of the Westerners faction, wrote a piece about Geumgangsan, Zhu Xi's Wuyi Nine Bends came to be sought at Geumgangsan. Thereafter Geumgangsan became a popular faith, as seen in the poetry of Kim Sat-gat.