The Haedong Kosŭng Chŏn[1] 海東高僧傳 or Lives of Eminent Korean Monks is the only extant book of its kind in Korea. The book was compiled by royal command in 1215 by Kakhun[2] 覺訓, abbot of the Yŏngt‘ong monastery[3] 靈通寺 in the capital of Koryŏ 高麗, and it was used by Iryŏn [4] 一然 as one of his primary sources for the compilation of the Samguk yusa[5] 三國遺事in or about 1285. The Lives, lost for almost seven centuries, was known only by title and by a few quotations. The book became known to the academic world with the discovery in the early part of this century[6] of a manuscript which contains only the first two chapters, on propagators of the faith.[7] It is not known by what happy chance the book came to be preserved, but we have at least the discoverer’s name. He was Yi Hoe-gwang[8] 李晦光 (1840-1911), abbot of the famous Haein monastery[9] 海印寺, the repository of the wood blocks for the Korean Tripitaka, and it is said that he found the manuscript at a certain monastery in Sŏngju[10] 星州 in the southwest of North Kyŏngsang Province. The manuscript was immediately reproduced by the Kwangmun hoe[11] 光文會 and circulated among specialists. In 1917 it was published in the Dainihon bukkyŏ zensho, Yŭhŏden series 2. A year later, in his History of Korean Buddhism 朝鮮佛敎通史, Yi Nŭng-hwa 李能和 (1868-1945) offered a number of corrections. The late Ch‘oe Nam-sŏn 崔南善 (1890-1957) published his critical edition in the magazine Pulgyo 佛敎, no. 37 (July 1927).[12] It was also included in the Taishŏ Tripitaka (L, no. 2065). Unfortunately, however, no studies have been made,[13] in Korean or any other language, of this invaluable document.
The two extant chapters of the Lives contain eighteen major and seven minor biographies of eminent monks and cover a span of five hundred years. The first chapter, which deals with three Koguryŏ monks, two Silla monks, and three monks of foreign origin, is the more important of the two. It throws new and often brilliant light on the development of Korean Buddhism from the time of its introduction to the seventh century. The second chapter, dealing with Silla monks who went to China or India, consists chiefly of excerpts from the Hsü kao-seng chuan and from the Ta-T‘ang hsi-yü ch‘iu-fa kao-seng chuan 大唐西域求法高僧傳 (ca. 705) of I-ching[14] 義淨 (635-713), except for the life of the monk Anham 安含an account found nowhere else.
In compiling the Lives, Kakhun was working within a well-established tradition. He had at least three prototypes, not to mention a large body of historical and literary materials from China and Korea. The Korean sources he cites are documents and records of great antiquity, of which a few are still extant. Among the Chinese sources, he is most indebted for form and style to the three Kao-seng chuan, from which he seems to have adopted the subordinate biography, the lun 論, and the eulogy, the ts‘an 贊.[15] There are, how¬ever, differences. The lun, which normally is found at the end of each category in Chinese biographical collections, comes only at the beginning, and the ts‘an following the individual biography is composed not in verse but in ornate, allusion-packed prose. The lun (non in Korean) outlines the history of Buddhism in China and Korea from the time of its introduction to the thirteenth century. Here Kakhun, out of Buddhist piety, uncritically accepts the dates of the Buddha as 1027-949 B.C., as advocated by T‘an-wu-tsui 曇無最.[16] Similar critical lapses can be found in the entries on Tamsi 曇始 and Hyŏnjo 玄照. In the first case, perhaps out of respect for his Chinese colleague, Kakhun copies almost verbatim the account of Tamsi (T‘an-shih or Hui-shih 惠始) in the Kao-seng chuan, without fully understanding the nature and significance of the Buddhist persecution under the Northern Wei.[17] As for the famous T‘ang pilgrim Hyŏnjo (Hsüan-chao),[18] we are simply told that he was a Silla national, without documentation.
Such minor lapses aside, Kakhun is a conscientious recorder of facts. Time and again he laments the paucity of materials. The ravages of time and havoc of wars were such that it is frightening to learn how little was preserved even in his own time. We glimpse Kakhun fighting desperately to shore up whatever remains there were of the civilization of the Three Kingdoms and Silla periods. In the biography of the anonymous correspondent of Chih Tun 支遁[19] he laments: “After the introduction of Buddhism into Korea from Chin, there must have been heroic personages during the times of Sung and Ch‘i, but regrettably no record of them exists.”[20] He registers his sorrow again at the end of the same section: “What is really regrettable is that no good historian kept a detailed record.”[21] Concerning the unreliability of the sources on Sundo 順道, either of Eastern Chin or of Former Ch‘in,[22] Kakhun comments: “What a waste of the man and his excellences! For there should be records on bamboo and silk glorifying his admirable accomplishment. Yet only a [small] number of his writings remain; one wonders why this is so.”[23] For the historian the only solution is, as Kakhun declares in the biography of Hyŏnyu 玄遊, that his contribution “be recorded in history and [thus] shown to posterity.”[24]
Kakhun, then, as a writer versed in Chinese historiography, was a transmitter, not a creator; and he was quick to point out that his work was transmission.[25] He respected the materials at hand and was careful to cite his sources. In cases involving reconstruction owing to the poor condition of the manuscript or kindred materials, he clearly admits this, as in the biography of Anham: “Ten logographs on the slab are eroded and four or five more are unclear. The author takes what is legible and reconstructs the text by surmise.”[26] When he cannot supply the dates of his subjects he says so with disarming frankness, as with the death date of Ŭiyŏn 義淵: “History does not relate his end; I therefore leave it unmentioned.”[27] Cases involving conflicting information on a given topic offer him a chance to make an exhortation to posterity to do research, as with the two Buddhist names of Pŏpkong 法空: “Those who are interested in antiquity will do well to study the matter.”[28] In yet another instance, after giving us no less than four theories[29] concerning the introduction of Buddhism into Silla, he adds, “What a discrepancy concerning the dates of Ado’s life! Old records must be scrutinized carefully.”[30]
Because Buddhism enjoyed seven centuries of uninterrupted prestige and protection as the state religion, Kakhun did not have to naturalize monks or to advance their status in Korean history.[31] What he wanted to do, however, was to prove that his subjects were on a par with their Chinese counterparts in every respect. For this purpose, he brings in Buddhist notables of the past and uses them figuratively, in ways that involve parallelism or imply contrast or superiority. Sundo, the first missionary to Koguryō, is termed a “peer of Dharmaratna 法蘭 and Seng-hui 僧會”[32] for his crusade in a foreign country and for his “great wisdom and wise counsel.”[33] Wŏn‘gwang 圓光, who used the ko-i 格義 method[34] in his exegesis of Buddhist doctrine, is rightly compared with Hui-yüan 慧遠 (334-416),[35] who used the same technique of explication de texte extensively two hundred years before. And the hardships suffered by five Silla pilgrims to China and India are compared with those of the envoys Chang Ch‘ien 張騫[36] and Su Wu 蘇武.[37]
But equalization was not enough. To Kakhun’s eye, some of his subjects were decidedly superior to their Chinese counterparts. Such is the case of Ado阿道, the first missionary to Silla, who is praised for the prudence and judiciousness wherewith he “tried [his] plans first before carrying out the work of propaga¬tion.”[38] The author’s appraisal ends with more than a comparison: “Even Li-fang 利方 of Ch‘in or [Kāśyapa] Mātanga 摩騰 of Han could not surpass [him].”[39] Again, as a parallel and contrast to Pŏpkong, who had renounced the throne to join the religious order, Emperor Wu of Liang is brought in only to be dismissed as a less-than-ideal monarch. Kakhun comments: “It is. . . wrong to compare him [Pŏpkong] with [Emperor] Wu of Liang, for while the latter served in the T‘ung-t‘ai monastery as a servant and let his imperial work fall to the ground, the former first surrendered his throne in order to install his heir and only afterwards became a monk.”[40] Pŏpkong is an ideal ruler, argues Kakhun, for his Buddhist fervor brought about not the downfall but rather the consolidation and prosperity of the kingdom.
True, the age of Buddhism in Korea began with Pŏpkong. But this would not have been possible unless Silla had been a land chosen and blessed by the former Buddha and unless former kings had accumulated meritorious karma from the beginning of the country’s history. Thus arose, from about the beginning of the sixth century, a belief that Korea was the land of the former Buddha. Such a belief is present in several episodes in the Lives. The first time we encounter it is in the biography of Ado, where Ado’s mother, before dispatching him to the barbarous country of Silla to propagate the faith, remarks: “Although at this moment there is no oral transmission of the doctrine in that land of Silla, three thousand months from now an enlightened king, a protector of the Law, shall hold sway and greatly advance the Buddha‘s cause. In the capital, there are seven places where the Law shall abide. . . . At these places are ruins of monasteries (sanghārāma) built during the time of the former Buddha, which escaped earlier destruction.”[41] There were such remains, according to the Lives, in the Forest of the Heavenly Mirror 天鏡林 in the year 534 when trees were felled in order to build a monastery.[42] “When the ground was cleared, pillar bases, stone niches, and steps were discovered, proving the site to be that of an old monastery (cāturdiśa).”[43] When the Great Master Wŏn‘gwang, shortly after his return from Sui in 600, went to inspect a site where a monastery was to be built, he found the remains of a stone pagoda,[44] again indicating the site of a former monastery. Still another site mentioned is that east of Wŏlsŏng 月城 and south of the Dragon Palace 龍宮, where the Hwangnyong monastery 皇龍寺 was built and where, according to the Samguk yusa, a stone was found upon which Kāśyapa and Śākyamuni used to sit in meditation.[45] There was, too, a brisk traffic between Korea and India. The gold that Great King Aśoka shipped to Sap‘o 絲浦 was used in 574 to cast a Buddhist image, sixteen feet high, at the Hwangnyong monastery.[46] Although Kakhun is quick to point out that this lore represents nothing more than tradition, all of it was pretty much part of the common belief of the time in which he must have felt a secret joy and pride.
As befitted the rulers of the land of the former Buddha, the Silla kings were said to be of the Ksatriya caste. This revelation was, according to Iryŏn, made by Mañjśrī himself when he appeared in the form of an old man to the Vinaya master Chajang 慈藏[47] on Mount Wu-t‘ai 五臺山.[48] The Bodhisattva addressed the Silla pilgrim: “Your sovereign is of the Ksatriya caste [of India, which is] far different from other barbarian tribes in the East.”[49] When Mañjuśrī appeared again in the form of an old monk, he advised the master Chajang to return to his country and visit Mount Odae 五臺山.[50] where ten thousand Mañjuśrī reside always.[51] With this episode, Silla became at once not only the land of the former Buddha but the land of the present and future Buddha as well, in other words, the permanent abode of the Buddha and the Bodhisattvas.
The myths and legends engendered by Buddhist piety in fact seem to determine the very nature of Buddhist biography. That is, the world this kind of writing refers to is a world presided over by the Buddha with his universal Law, by miraculous wonders and wondrous miracles, and by the relentless workings of karmic rewards and retributions. Indeed, this referential world hitherto unknown to the Koreans, was a world unto itself, one with a concept of time and space all its own. Subjects of the Lives, or, for that matter, subjects of any Kao-seng chuan, therefore move in a world where they sense the hand of the Buddha working at every moment and in every corner.[52] Not until their maturity do most of them make their appearance in history. No striking details are given about their characters or personalities; these must be inferred from stock phrases which suggest their behavior patterns. Some were already blessed with enlightenment at birth (Anham),[53] or were self-enlightened (Āryavarman);[54] but even less fortunate ones possessed “profound understanding and broad learning” (Ŭiyŏn),[55] “unfathomable holiness” (Kaktŏk),[56] “extraordinary understanding” (Wŏn‘gwang),[57] “great wisdom and insight” (Hyŏn‘gak),[58] or an “otherworldly, harmonious nature” (Hyŏnyu).[59] Less favored ones still, like Sundo, at least “vigorously practiced virtue” and were “compassionate and patient in helping living beings.”[60] By the time we come to Hyŏnt‘ae 玄太, we cannot but feel that the compiler’s imagination has failed him or that he was too tired to pull out yet another index card from his file, for we are told only that Hyŏnt‘ae was “pensive as a child, and [that] he had the marks (laksana) of a great man (Mahāpurusa).”[61]
Since extraordinary potentialities are present in all of them from birth, their future successes are easy to prognosticate. Some of them perform miracles (Tamsi, Ado, Anham), cure incurable illness (Wŏn‘gwang, Ado), or communicate with supernatural beings such as spirits, dragons, and heavenly messengers (Wŏn‘gwang, Mālānanda). Miracles also accompany their activities. Both Heaven and Earth tremble in announcing the advent of Ado, and wondrous flowers rain from Heaven during his sermon; music fills the air and unusual fragrance is noticed at the death of Wŏn‘gwang. After death one monk, Anham, is seen riding squarely on the green waves, joyfully heading west. Often we are told of the subjects’ feats of endurance against fire, wild beast, or sword and axe, experiences from which, having mastered the elements of nature, they always emerge intact. But should they suffer death, permitted by the Buddha to glorify his religion, miracles of the most spectacular nature take place, as in the case of the martyrdom of Ich‘adon 異次頓.[62]
Finally, the compiler’s attempt to give color or luster to his subjects results in the repetition of conventional epithets. Ŭiyŏn is “a leader of both monks and laymen,”[63] “a ferry on the sea of suffering,”[64] or the “middle beam over the gate of the Law.”[65] Chimyŏng’s moral power is “as high as Mount Sung 嵩 or Mount Hua 華,” his magnanimity “as deep as a wide ocean.”[66] A single epithet, “a lotus in the fire,” singles out Hyŏn‘gak from the others.[67] Rarely is animal imagery used; a “lion” roaming alone in the wilderness[68] occurs, fittingly, in allusion to the pilgrim Hyŏnt‘ae as he braves the hardships of crossing the Himālayas, but such an instance of creative imagination is exceptional.
After plowing through the Lives, one wonders whether the stock phrases and behavior patterns used would satisfy even the most modest demands of twentieth-century curiosity. Such archetypal themes of life as hope and fear, pride and prejudice, struggle and triumph are present. Often there are descriptions of the hardships and obstacles that the monks have had to overcome in order to fulfill their mission, such as the taunts of the enemy, the ignorance of masses, the tyranny of the ruler, or the impassability of nature. There are also moving accounts of experiences endured and sacrifices made for the propagation and glory of the religion. But upon scrutiny these monks evaporate into the vast realm of the Dharma. From the beginning, they are placed on a plane high above ordinary people, where their suffering and struggling are only precious memories, “glittering exempla for the future believers.”[69] What the compiler emphasizes is precisely what sets them apart from ordinary people: their aloofness from human weakness and frailty. Indeed, they are, as Kakhun states, “as remote from us as the easternmost extremity,”[70] and writing of their Lives is as difficult as “catching the wind or grasping a reflection.”[71]
True, there is a span of from nearly six hundred to a thousand years separating Kakhun from his subjects. The more remote in time a subject is, the more remote he becomes as an individual. There are, too, insurmountable gaps. One seldom discerns any attempt to place the subject in the diurnal course of existence. Prenatal wonders, amazing precocity, feats of endurance, wonderworking and miracles—these familiar formulae and patterns are the very stuff from which the compiler worked up his accounts. Indeed, such a common stock of references has supplied the deficiency in both knowledge and style of many of the biographies.[72] But for Kakhun’s readers it was this very repetition of formulaic detail which drove home the existence of the spiritual world of the Buddha and proved its endless workings through the medium of the eminent monks. The reality of the Dharma and karma, otherwise not apparent to mundane eyes, was thus made manifest to believers and nonbelievers alike.
After scrutinizing the Lives with respect to its historical context, referential world, techniques, and behavior patterns, I am compelled to conclude that it is, if anything, what Paul Murray Kendall calls “demand biography,” that is, “biography produced to satisfy the requirements or the predilections of an age, to act as a beast of burden for ends other than the illumination of life.”[73] The purpose of the Lives is edification. It is an instrument for conversion and the propagation of the faith. It is propaganda because it persuasively purveys a specific doctrine and upholds the values of eminent monks as a model for emulation. As the theme in Western hagiography from A.D. 400 to 1400 was the glory of God through the praise of His saints, so the theme in the Lives is the glory of the world of the Dharma through the Lives of its monks. Such generalized biography is hardly life-writing in the truest sense of the word. It does not illuminate or recreate man but deforms him into a simulacrum of life, an exemplum of the wonderful world of the Law.[74] But these faults are not entirely the compiler’s. The limits of the Lives are the limits imposed by the view of man that prevailed at that time; they are determined by the social and cultural forces at work.
The secular and nationalistic aspects of Silla Buddhism are best exemplified in the master Wŏn‘gwang’s “Five Commandments for Laymen” and in the institution of the hwarang, an indigenous system whereby aristocratic youth were recruited to fill key political and military roles during Silla’s period of nation-building. The five commandments deal with such virtues as loyalty, filial piety, sincerity, courage, and goodness (benevolence). But what is remarkable is the master’s ability to meet the current situation and to adapt his teaching to the demands of the occasion. Silla was then in a national crisis, and its survival depended on the undivided loyalty and service of the people. Two youths who received the master’s instruction carried his precepts into practice in 602 by dying in action in a battle against Paekche. A guiding spirit in the cultivation of the hwarang was also provided by eminent monks. They not only counseled the members of the hwarang as to conduct in the light of the “Five Commandments” but served them as chaplains in their liberal education and perhaps even on the battlefield.[75] Scattered references in historical sources suggest that some members of the hwarang were believed to be reincarnations of Maitreya;[76] and Kim Yu-sin, a leader of the hwarang, and his group were called the Yonghwa hyangdo[77] 龍華香徒, a “band of the Dragon Flower tree,” the bodhi tree of Maitreya when he comes to earth to save the living beings. What sustained the hwarang was this belief in Mai¬treya, a patron saint of the institution, and the belief that its members were no less than reincarnated Maitreyas.[78] Indeed, Buddhism provided a formidable ideology for the unification and protection of the country.
Yet the ultimate function of the Lives is more secular than one is led to believe. From the time of its introduction, Buddhism in Korea was closely related to the state and the ruling house.[79] The king enforced the vinaya and protected the sangha, and the sangha in turn prayed for the country and helped the administration to implement its policies.[80] This close interrelationship is well illustrated by the popularity of the Suvarnaprabāsa 金光明經[81] and Jen-wang ching 仁王經[82] In the former, the four deva kings pledge themselves to protect a ruler who reads and worships the sūtra;[83] in the latter, the same pledge is made by the World-Honored One himself.[84] In order, therefore, to protect and encourage the Dharma and to receive the promised blessings, a number of treatises were written on these sūtras[85] and the Assemblies of Benevolent Kings 仁王會[86] were held to read and elucidate them. The initiation of the P'algwanhoe 八關會 in Silla also had as its function the protection of the country. The p'algwanhoe is a Buddhist ceremony in which the layman receives the eight prohibitory commands, which he vows to keep for one day and one night. The first mention of this ceremony in Silla occurs in 551[87] and the second on November 10, 572.[88] In 636, by the shores of T‘ai-hua lake 太華池[89] on Mount Wu-t‘ai, the master Chajang met a deity who asked him to construct a nine-story pagoda[90] upon his return to Silla and to initiate the p‘algwanhoe as the best means of protecting the country from invasions.[91] Although history does not mention the ceremony for the next three hundred years, until the beginning of Koryŏ, during the Koryŏ period the ceremony was codified and secularized and took place frequently, especially during such times of national crisis as the Khitan and Mongol invasions.[92]
The compilation of the Lives, like any other act of piety, was intended to “make the country and Buddhism prosper,”[93] as the compiler declares with vigorous conviction. Ich‘adon, whose martyrdom heralded the Buddhist era in Silla, exclaims: “If we practice Buddhism, the whole country will become prosperous and peaceful.”[94] Buddhism, Kakhun reminds us, is the only path able to ensure the efficacy of “the Deathless Medicine of the Law.”[95]
What is, then, the nature of the Lives in the most comprehensive sense? It is a curious amalgam of religion, philosophy, history, and perhaps literature.[96] It is a complex organization of materials drawn from all the known philosophies and ideologies of the time,[97] with multiple meanings and functions. Highly eclectic and syncretic in nature, it came into being to satisfy the wishes and needs of a particular audience in a particular time which espoused a particular brand of Buddhism. The curious nature and unusual function of the Lives are the very reasons for its existence, because, as T. S. Eliot remarks, “Nothing in this world or the next is a substitute for anything else.”[98] Indeed, Kakhun successfully and pre-eminently performed what a Buddhist biographer would set out to do.