Outlines of Baekdu-daegan Books



02. Shamanic and Buddhist Founders of Korea’s Sacred Mountains

• Earliest Cultural History of the Baekdu-daegan Concept • Korean Shamanism • How Mountains Became Holy • Mountain-basis of Korean Culture • Doltap Stone Towers • Criteria for Sacred Mountains • Ado Hwasang • Yeon-gi-josa • Jajang-yulsa and Uisang-josa •

The earliest origins of the Korean concepts of sacred mountains and the general auspiciousness of the Baekdu-daegan Mountain-system are lost in the mists of antiquity, developing long before the pre-civilized peoples of this peninsula had any system of writing.

Based on what we do know and the legacies that remain, however, we can construct a scenario of the process by which it happened. The key factor may have been that the earliest settlements of Stone Age tribes were all along the lower reaches of the dozen or so great rivers of the peninsula and southern Manchuria. These rivers flowing down from the remote, high mountains offered fresh waters and plenty of easily-attainable sea-foods, flocks of birds and mud-banks for primitive farming. In other words, the rivers and their tributary streams were the sources of life for those proto-Koreans – providing the basic necessities for their sustenance. The Stone Age people were then conquered and absorbed or eliminated by Bronze Age horse-riders coming from Siberia and Mongolia, who created settled communities in the same riverside areas. Those Bronze Age tribal communities were devoted to and organized around what we call Shamanism, originating in far-northeast Asia and still surviving in Korea today[1].

We can then suppose that the sacralization process of Korea's greatest mountains began with primitive Shamans wondering where the life-giving great rivers came from, and then exploring their way up the long waterways deep into the wilderness, seeking the sources. If successful, each of these quests ended just below a mighty peak, close to Heaven, where mystical energies were sensed.

That mountain comes to be considered sacred, source of the holy waters, abode of powerful spirits. More people visit on spiritual quests, building shrines and ceremonially making offerings. Some of them have intense visions or dreams of the Sanshin mountain-spirits[2] or other deities residing there, or they may have had other sorts of spiritual epiphanies. They report back to their communities, and the reputation of those peaks and slopes grows.

Buddhism spreads through the nation as it enters history; monks come to that mountain known for its shamanic powers, explore the area and then establish a small temple. A few of them achieve enlightenment or at least great wisdom while residing, meditating and worshiping there. The reputation spreads widely, and many Koreans with religious ambitions are attracted to come to that mountain, hoping for similar attainment. Great teachers set up there and attract dozens of students, some of whom stay on to instruct the next generation. Increasing numbers of temples and shamanic shrines are built on the slopes of this mountain, and some master gives it a name with a profound and auspicious religious meaning, under which it becomes firmly established as a holy area.

Some visitors intuit that its crags are inhabited by one or more Daoist “immortals”, or at least sages with extraordinary longevity. Some feel that the “earth-energy”[3] flowing through its ridges and waterfalls is particularly strong and grants health, wisdom and good fortune, either for themselves individually or for the region’s resident-communities. More people who hear about it make pilgrimages there to experience that special energy.

Even Confucian scholars come to study deep in the valleys, seeking and finding their own brand of illuminated wisdom about the principles of Heaven, Earth and Humanity under the inspiration of its natural beauty. Korean Christians even set up their prayer camps in the forests at its feet, finding it an ideal place to draw closer to God. By the modern era no one can remember a time when it was not considered a sacred mountain in a wide multi-religious sense, and it is simply known as a “famous” one. Even its botanical / agricultural products are accorded higher status and value when they are branded as having come from this mountain or anywhere nearby it.

The Baekdu-daegan contains roughly half of Korea's mountains that have come all the way through this sacralization process, and most of the other half are found along its main branches. Because the entire mountain-system is the ultimate source of all Korea's rivers and streams, it became considered as sacred in its own right once it was recognized as a distinct entity just over 1000 years ago. However, it has become sacralized in a more vague and general sense than the most famous of its constituent peaks, due to its vast size and reach. Traditionalists believe that it is infused with especially strong and auspicious life-amplification energies that flow from Baekdu-san down the main-line until being defused to all of Korea through ten-thousand branch-lines, benefiting every conceivable spiritual activity. For a thousand years it has retained this broad religious significance for the Koreans, an emotion-laden concept with deep ancient roots.

In the Shamanism of those Bronze Age tribal communities mentioned above, people believed that every distinct landform, plant, animal and human being were revitalized by spirits, all or any of which exercised influence on natural phenomena (weather, abundance or decline of food availability, etc) that directly determined good fortune or misfortune for themselves and their neighbors. They believed that these spirits could be communicated with, propriated, honored, appeased and negotiated with through ritual behavior and ritualized ceremonies. Spirits were generally envisioned in hierarchies that reflected the natural and social world they knew. They held the heavenly spirits in highest status, Sanshin mountain spirits just below them, and then the major plant, animal and human spirits forming the base of the earthly ranks, and then ghosts, goblins, demons and all kinds of minor spirits on the lowest-ranking levels.

Shamans were personages of very high status, and even possibly the leaders of the tribes, a status that would later merge with Chinese institutions of royalty during the formation of the “Three Kingdoms” around 1700 years ago. These shaman-rulers and other lesser shamans conducted both private and communal rituals in which they communicated in ritualistic religious ways with the spirits of Heaven, Earth and deceased persons. This was done in hopes of preventing, driving away or at least reducing “bad fortune” such as bad weather, sicknesses, injuries, infertility and shortages of desired foods. They did the same in order to attract or ensure “good fortune” such as health, abundance, fair weather, fertility and fecundity.[4]

The entire Korean Peninsula is about 75% mountains (80% in the north and 70% in the south, by current geographical reckoning), and Manchuria is much the same; these are very dense rates of mountain-concentration by global standards. This simple fact of topographical context has made the Korean people place mountains at the center of their culture throughout the history of its development. Selected mountains are regarded as sacred by traditional cultures all over the world, and the ancestors of the Koreans have certainly been no exception; in fact that tendency has been notably amplified in the spiritual history of this nation. Almost every settled community in Korea has a nearby mountain it venerates as sacred in some way.

For most Korean manshin[5] the Sanshin has always been very important among the many spirits they have worshipped, served and been possessed by. Ritual supplication of the local Sanshin of the mountain on which the gut[6] is being performed, or the bonhyang-sanshin[7], calms and purifies the Shaman’s mind/spirit, helping her achieve a ‘higher consciousness’ and enter into her preferred trance-state. Almost all kut, which are usually held at a sacred mountain, begin with a prayer to Sanshin “for protection”, usually as the second stage. In a modern initiation-ceremony of the popular kind originating in Hwanghae Province, the first act of a three-day-long kut is called “Informing the Sanshin”; when the initiate has been accepted by the spirit(s) on the third day “Dan-gun and Sanshin” command(s) her to become a “National Manshin” and go forth to benefit all people. Man-shin (including fortune-tellers) who become primarily possessed by the spirit of a particular peak frequently adopt a religious title using that mountains name, followed by a suffix such as -bosal, -halmoni, -dosa or -manshin.

These points demonstrate the mountain spirit’s leading role in Korean Shamanic rituals, and through that its central role in the basis of all Korea's religious traditions. None of their theories or practices can be understood very far apart from the national tradition of sacred mountains.

Visitors will find a multitude of doltap [cairns or small towers of stones] representing a vaguely conflated combination of mountains, tutelary or pagodas (increasingly, in a remarkable variety of styles) beside trails and up on cliffs, built and maintained by rural monks and shamans as well as modern-urbanized Koreans. These are built as traditional ritual acknowledgments of Sanshin and the mountain’s religious significance. Many passing hikers try to add another stone found nearby to the top of the pile, and if successful may bow and offer a brief prayer. These ancient-rooted practices reflect enduring Shamanist influences with belief in Sanshin at their core. One signboard we found next to a large doltap along the Baekdu-daegan trail can be translated like this:

Stone Tower of Good Fortune

Our ancestors set up stone towers like this when passing along rough trails in the mountains, consoling themselves and wishing for peace and prosperity. Just like our forefathers did, we also have built this stone tower of good fortune, wishing for the peace and prosperity of the hikers now passing by here. Go ahead and place a stone on the top of the tower! I hope that you obtain good luck and health by imbibing some life-enhancing energy from the Baekdu-daegan mountains!

Many of Korea's secular national heroes were legendarily said to be born, educated or trained at great sacred mountains. It is a frequent motif in the tales that the great person in his younger days prays to the Sanshin in a cave or at a stone altar below one of these famous peaks, and is rewarded with a magical sword or other powers that he uses to defeat Korea's enemies or establish a new royal dynasty. Having such a site or legend associated with it greatly enhances the reputation of a mountain as being sacred, and these places with their stories tying the national heroes in with holy mountains and their spirits can be found by hikers all along the Baekdu-daegan and its major branches.

We have considered several of the basic early factors that have led to sacralization of the Baekdu-daegan as a whole and some of its constituent mountains, such as serving as the origin of a major river, visionary shamanic experiences, the building of shrines and temples, enlightenment, wisdom, or other religious attainments in that area and social heroes having been born, trained, educated and/or gained special powers there. Building further upon all there are other factors both physical and cultural that have played a role in this sacralization. None of them are absolutely necessary but combinations of several of them seem to be sufficient. These include:

• unusually high and sharp peaks

• massive size

• outstanding prominence in the surrounding landscape

• significant geographical position, including dividing regions from each other

• unusual, strange or outstanding topographical features

• having served as the geographical "guardian" mountain of a city or region, perhaps with a military fortress on it

• having served as the spiritual "guardian" mountain of a city, thought to have powers to generate or ensure abundant fecundity, or simply to protect against disaster

• old folk or religious myths or legends being sited there

• myths of that mountain’s “spirit” appearing or manifesting in human or animal form and maybe causing some phenomena (like assisting residents or visiting heroes)

• presence of significant historical / archaeological sites or remains

• previous governments established shrines there for worship of its spirit

• previous governments including it in a numeric-based system of sacred mountains

Examples of how these factors have functioned to inspire Koreans to consider the Baekdu-daegan as a whole and some of its constituent mountains as sacred will be provided all through the rest of this book.

Contemporary Koreans themselves rarely speak in reference to any such criteria when mentioning that a certain mountain is sacred; that it meets one or more of these criteria is usually only implied, and usually assumed to be generally known by everyone, not requiring detailed explanation. Myeongsan is the most common term used to designate sacred mountains – the Sino-Korean character[8] myeong employed here was apparently originally the one meaning "bright" with Shamanic-Daoist religious overtones, but is now its synonym-character meaning "famous". Other Korean terms used in this way, although less commonly, are yeongsan [mountain with a spirit or spiritual mountain], shinseong-hansan [spirit-holy big-mountain] and shinryeongsan [mountain with a powerful spirit].

Korea's oldest written records, as included within the Samguk-Yusa [Supplementary Stories from the Three Kingdoms] contain more than a few stories of Buddhist missionary-masters from distant lands who made crucial contributions to the early sacralization of Korean mountains, particularly those along the Baekdu-daegan. These were bold adventurers around the Fifth and Sixth Centuries CE, who were willing to risk political prohibitions and the tigers that dominated the alpine wilderness in order to establish the first generations of Korea's Buddhist temples on the mountains already declared holy by the indigenous shamans.

One of the most important was Ado Hwasang, thought to have been the son of a Goguryeo Kingdom woman and her lover who came as ambassador from a northern Chinese state. Ado traveled first through the Baekje Kingdom[9] and then into the Shilla Kingdom[10], establishing Buddhist temples and trying to spread the teachings. His efforts are recorded to have been accepted by Baekje but violently rejected by Shilla. He is sometimes called Ado-josa, the Sino-Korean suffix -josa designating the Founder of a Buddhist sect, although his accomplishment is mainly held to be the building of monasteries and no distinct set of doctrines that he espoused remains known to us. He is credited with being the founder of 14 other temples that still exist today, mostly in Korea's southernmost regions.

It is said that in about 420 CE, Ado Hwasang founded Gap-sa Temple on the northwestern slopes of Gyeryong-san[11], and then hiked above the Yongmun-pokpo [Dragon-Gate Waterfall] and found a dramatically-gigantic natural tower made out of boulders and a cliff, at the site we now know as Shinheung-am [Spirit-Arising Hermitage]. He declared that it is a primeval “pagoda” enshrining relics of an ancient Buddha, established by the Sanshin(s) of auspicious Gyeryong-san. This is regarded as the origin of weaving together Korea's traditional shamanic Mountain-spirit beliefs the Mahayana Buddhism he was helping to import, a key factor in the “Koreanization” of Indian / Central-Asian / Chinese Buddhist beliefs and practices.

It's also recorded in those ancient stories that when he crossed the Baekdu-daegan into Shilla territory near what is now Gimcheon City with a small group of disciples, he pointed with his finger to a spot at the foot of the eastern slopes of Hwangak-san, saying “That would be an auspicious site for a great temple”. When Shilla later officially accepted Buddhism, a brand monastery was indeed built on that site, and was named Jikji-sa [Finger-Pointing Temple] in honor of Ado Hwasang’s designation. This could be just a folk-tale created later on to playfully explain the name, because it seems more likely that it refers to the well-known Jikji-gyeong [Finger-Pointing Scripture], a key document in Seon [Meditational, Zen] Buddhism, and its famous spiritual directive: “When the master is pointing at the Moon, you should look at the moon and not the finger pointing to it!”[12] At any rate, Jikji-sa remains one of the greatest monastery is along the Baekdu-daegan Range-line[13], and the meaning of its name must be considered a combination of these stories and themes.

Another of these great early religious pioneers is called Yeon-gi-josa, of whom we know relatively little about except that he is said to have possibly been of Central Asian or even Indian origin, traveling to the remote southern region of the Korean Peninsula as a missionary. He is said to have come to the massive and highly-sacred Jiri-san at the southern end of the Baekdu-daegan in the early 500s, establishing several of the temples which are still among Korea's most significant today. He sited them in what was then territory extending between the jurisdictions Baekje, Gaya and Shilla kingdoms, in an effort to promote harmonious peace between those warring states.

One of those he started was later expanded into what is now Hwaeom-sa, one of contemporary Korea’s most-important monasteries[14]. Another is Beopgye-sa, one of the nation's highest altitude hermitages just below Jiri-san’s holy summit[15], which he is said to have built in order to counter any negative spiritual energies coming from Japan and defend Korea against the depredations of its pirates. He also initially built Daewon-sa Temple in a gorge on that same peak’s northeastern slopes, for geomantic-locational balance, which later became quite a famous place of worship and now serves as a primary trailhead for the Baekdu-daegan.

Master Yeongi has a large modern hermitage of Hwaeom-sa named after him, and is credited with having founded four other traditional temples that are still significant today, all close by the Jiri-san terminus of the Baekdu-daegan. A highly-valued pagoda-statute at Hwaeom-sa is dedicated to his legacy, and is thought to actually depict him.

A century after Yeongi-josa, a great Shilla Kingdom monk known as Jajang-yulsa founded several other grand monasteries along the central reaches of the Baekdu-daegan range, the region now known as Gangwon Province. He played a very important role in this sacralization process this chapter has been describing, planting relics of Sakyamuni the Buddha within them in order to consecrate their host mountains for Buddhism.

In an eventful generation following Jajang that saw the unification of most of the Korean Peninsula under one kingdom, yet another key figure in Korean Buddhist history also founded some great temples along this mountain system. Uisang-josa followed the example of his forerunner Yeongi in establishing his new monasteries or refurbishing older ones (including Hwaeom-sa) on sites that were on both sides of the Baekdu-daegan in its southern reaches, in order to promote reconciliation between the regions that were formally warring kingdoms but were now at peace and seeking to become one nation.

Because both Uisang-josa and Jajang-yulsa are so important to the cultural history of the Baekdu-daegan, and have so many great stories attached to their names, they will each be given an entire chapter of their own later on in this book, associated with the areas in which their most significant legacies are found today.

We have discussed only a few of the missionary-explorers responsible for establishing and consecrating spiritual places within the Baekdu-daegan Mountain-system in the earliest recordings of Korean history; most of them will always remain anonymous. Other identifiable spiritual masters who later founded or enhanced sacred sites along the Baekdu-daegan will be depicted in appropriate later chapters of this volume.

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[1] Korean Shamanism is regarded to have its roots in the eastern Siberian and Mongolian regions, but has combined with Chinese Daoism and other religious traditions to become a unique and complex spiritual tradition of its own.

[2] See Chapter 9.

[3] See chapter 4.

[4] Please refer to any of the excellent works on Shamanism listed in the References appendix of this book for a deeper understanding of the original roots of Korea's shamanic culture, its endurance right on through the 20th century and its transformations in contemporary times.

[5] Manshin, meaning one who can communicate with myriad spirits, is the polite term to use for a Korean shaman. The more commonly-used term mudang is now considered less respectful, is sometimes used with a derogatory intention by leaders of other religions, and could be thought insulting by some shamans – although some shamans publicly use it for themselves. There are other terms designating Korean shamans that have been used for centuries, found in scholarly writings, but they are little-known by the public today.

[6] Shamanic ceremony, which can last for anywhere from one hour to three days and nights, and be conducted by one or several shamans. This term is pronounced “goot” and has been spelled in many previous publications as kut.

[7] Mountain-spirit of the peak overlooking the Shaman’s own hometown, or that of her husband or father.

[8] Terms or characters that employ Chinese characters (but pronounced in a different Korean way) used within the Korean language and sometimes with particular Korean contextual meanings are called Hanja in Korean and Sino-Korean by international scholars.

[9] Korea's southwestern quadrant, at that time from the Lower Han River Valley (today's Seoul City) down to the southwest coast.

[10] The southeast region, watershed of the Nakdong River, defined by the Baekdu-daegan to its north and west.

[11] That name means Rooster-Dragon Mountain, and it is still today one of Korea's very holiest mountains, just west of Daejeon City, while Gap-sa continues to be a very important monastery.

[12] This means that when your teacher is pointing out reality or the spiritual truth, you should pay attention to that object and not to the personage showing it to you or the method they are using to show it.

[13] See Chapter 11.

[14] Hwaeom-sa is described in Chapter 7.

[15] See Chapter 5, and also for Daewon-sa.

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