Earlier Mireuksa Posts: One | Two

Two months ago I wrote a pair of posts on a recent archaeological find at Mireuksa connected to a story from the Samguk Yusa. My first post was mentioned on the Korean meta-blog Hub of Sparkle last week, which was a bit surprising to see. (And here I thought kutay was the only one who reads my history-related updates.) Encountering a reference to my earlier entries made me realize that I hadn't checked for any recent information on whether archaeologists had been able to link Princess Seonhwa of Silla to Prince Seongdong of Baekje. With something like 500 artifacts recovered from the temple's cache it will obviously take some time to catalogue and analyze everything.

A recent search of Daum and Naver shows that Mireuksa made the news again last week, with articles coming from the Munhwa, Chosun, and Hankooki. However, the general feeling from each is that researchers are still no closer to finding a link than they were back in January. While browsing through Korean search engines I did come across another couple of sites with lovely photos. The first of is here courtesy of 9suk9suk while the second is a post here by 03swsw (사람♡사랑). The latter set includes two older images coming from 1910 and 1930 that add a little more historical context.

Another awesome find was this piece that discusses the currency and pressed gold in use by the Baekje kingdom at the time. From what I can make out it was common to emboss the hanja (Chinese character) for 'cow' (牛) on one edge of the gold, though I don't know the reasons for this. The Baekje kingdom wasn't founded on pastoralism and, if anything, I would expect the character for 'pig' to show up instead; I've heard from a few people that the Korean word for money (돈; don) is a homonym with the Korean pronunciation of the Chinese character for pig (豬) -- although Wiktionary has the pronunciation as something different (저; jeo).

Cow Gold. Image from goisale
By the way, kutay, I have a couple of archaeology-related .pdf articles about the temple if you're interested. One is in Korean, but you might be able to get some info out of the accompanying graphs and figures?

My academy director had a surprise for me when I came in to work this afternoon -- another newspaper clipping about the archaeological find in Jeollabuk-do. As the following video - courtesy of Yonhap News - illustrates, the sarira recovered from the pagoda is actually quite small. Between this and the miniature gold Buddhas on display at the National Museum of Korea I can see why Baekje-era artisans are praised so highly for their craftsmanship; the detail and care put into these small artifacts is simply amazing.

I was also given a quick summary of the accompanying article, which adds an additional layer to the story of Seongdong. Apparently, further examination of the associated artifacts confirms that Seongdong did marry a Baekje official's daughter, but also suggests that he had more than one wife. Obviously the hope in some circles is that this additional wife will turn out to be Princess Seonhwa, thus supporting the story found within the Samguk Yusa. A quick check online didn't turn up anything new in the English-language press, but running an image search for 미륵사지 on Naver and Daum continues to yield new images of the artifacts being examined and catalogued.

A good photographic walk-through of the site in modern times can be found via tasofhso's blog.

And for anyone who wasn't already familiar with the term, Sarira (Sanskrit: शरीर Chinese: 舍利) can refer to:

• Dharma body sariras, or sutras as told by the Buddha, according to Din Fu Bao's Dictionary of Buddhist Terms, a Dharma body sarira is "the Sutra as told by the Buddha: That which is unchanging in what is told by the Buddha, is of the same property as the essence of the Buddha himself, hence it is called the 'dharma body sarira'".
• Corporal and full body sariras, the cremated remains of the Buddha (or any other spiritual master), but can also be used to refer other remains (for instance, a finger), or a preserved body, similar to the Roman Catholic incorruptibles. Full body sariras refers to the mummified remains of spiritual masters.
• Broken body sariras refers specifically to cremated remains.
• Sariras or Ringsels, when used without qualification, the term sarira generally refers to the pearl-like remnant of a master after cremation.



Mireuksaji (미륵사지) replica from Godoiksan

Part One of a three part series. Also see Part Two | Part Three

I had plans to see an acquaintance last night and we spent most of our evening chatting over dinner at a chicken joint near Kyung Hee University (경희대). The owner had the television set to American wrestling before eventually switching over to the news. There was a short preview of the Obama inauguration, but what really caught my eye was a lengthier piece on a recently-discovered collection of artifacts down in Jeollabuk-do. The finding occured at Mireuksa (彌勒寺) in the south of Korea and involves a tale from the Samguk Yusa and intra-Korean relations - in particular those between Baekje and Silla - during the Three Kingdoms period.

[ From the 20 January 2009 edition of the Chosun Ilbo ]

The general outline of the story (which I'll include in full at the end of this entry) is that Prince Seongdong (성동) of Baekje, who will later go on to reign as King Mu (武王; r. 600-641) spreads a song about himself and Princess Seonhwa (선화) of Silla that leads to her exile. He introduces himself during her exile, they fall in love, and then marry with the blessings of Seonhwa's father, King Jinpyeong of Silla. Scholars have doubted the veracity of this story given the frequent fighting that took place between Baekje and Silla during that period but haven't come across any supporting evidence pointing one way or the other. Until the discovery at Mireuksa, anyway.

Mireuksa contains the oldest extant stone pagoda in the world, which the Cultural Heritage Administration designated as National Treasure no. 11 in 1962. I've come across two English-language articles describing recent events at the temple and both have brought up the discovery of 500 artifacts during a project to "dismantle" the pagoda -- which I hope is only part of reconstruction efforts and not a suggestion that the temple will soon no longer exist. (Being fluent in Korean sure would come in handy right about now!) Getting back to the matter at hand, a bongangi (봉안기; golden plate) was found that confirms that the temple was built in 639 AD and goes on to mention the identity of King Mu's wife:

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