Transactions of the korea branch of the royal asiatic society volume XXXVIII

IV. The Maitreya Hwarang Story
It is convenient to treat the story of the Maitreya Hwarang (彌勒仙花) separately because it is dependent on the account of Chinhŭng and the founding of the hwarang in the Yusa⁷⁾.

In the reign of Chinji (眞智 576-579) there was a monk at Hŭngnyun-sa (興輪寺) called Chinja (眞慈), who was for ever going in before the image of the Lord Miruk (Maitreya, 彌勒) and praying: “Great Holy One, deign to appear in this world as a hwarang, and let me always be near you to serve you.” His devotion and desire increased exceedingly until one night a monk appeared to him in a dream and said: “If you will go to Suwŏn-sa (水源寺) at Ungch’ŏn (熊川 now Kongju 公州), you will see the Maitreya as a hwarang. Chinja woke up amazed and happy and went in search of that temple. He took ten days to get there, kowtowing at each step of the way. Outside the door stood a lad in beautifully embroidered clothes who welcomed him with a radiant smile and led him through the wicket gate into the guestroom. Chinja went in, bowed to the boy and said: “Since you did not know me before, how did you come to welcome me so kindly?” The boy replied: “I too am a man from the capital, and I saw your reverence coming from a long way off, so I came to greet you”. Shortly afterwards he went out without saying where he was going. Chinja thought it was a coincidence and did not pay much attention to the matter. But he told the monks of the temple about the dream he had had and why he had come. “So please can I stay here in the lowest place and wait to see if Maitreya will came as a hwarang?” The monks thought he was crazy, but in view of his politeness and humility

7) Ibid, see above page 17, note 3.
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they said, “South of here at Ch’ ŏnsan (千山) nearby, there has been a wise and holy man living for a long time. He is expert in such matters. Why don’t you go to him?” Chinja did as they said and went to the mountainside where the spirit of the mountain came out in the form of an old man and said: “What have you come here for?” “I want to see Maitreya as a hwarang”. The old man said: “You have already seen him outside the gate of Suwŏn-sa. What else do you want?” Chinja was amazed and went back quickly to his own temple.

A month or more later King Chinji heard about all this and summoned Chinja to his presence to ask about it. The King said: “The boy said he was a monk of the capital, and the Holy One would not speak empty words. Why don’t you search for him in the city?” Chinja noted the royal suggestion and gathered the faithful and searched high and low throughout the city, till he found a rapturously pretty boy playing and dancing under the trees by the road to the northeast of the Yŏngmyo Temple (靈妙寺). Chinja was amazed and said: “This is the Maitreya hwarang”. He went up to the lad and asked: “Where do you live? I should like to know your name”. The boy said: “My name is Mil (未尸). I lost my parents when I was tiny, and so I do not know my surname”. They got into a car and went back to the king, who took a fancy to the boy and made him a kuksŏn. His followers were united in charity, but his manners and music were different from the ordinary. His p’ungnyu delighted the world for seven years, then he suddenly disappeared. Chinja grieved deeply. But by bathing himself in Mil’s grace, and continuing in his purity he was able to live in penitence following the way (道).

The relater adds that the character mi sounds like the first character of Mirŭk (彌勒), while the character ri (l 尸) looks like the character ryŏk (力). So it seems that the name is a riddle writing of Mirŭk. The Holy One was not merely moved by the devotion of Chinja, but appeared several times for the sake of the country. [page 28] Even to the present time a mountain spirit (神仙) is called Maitreya Hwarang, and a mediator is called mil. This is all Chinja’s legacy. Still, too, roadside trees are called “sighting of boys” (見如) or more colloquially sayŏ (似如) or inyŏ (印如) trees.

The temptation to interpret fairy tales is strong. In this tale the most striking thing is the fact that a hwarang is Maitreya and that he is connected so firmly with trees. Mishina discusses the possible connection with dendolatry,⁸⁾ which is an ancient practice in Korea, and also relates the story to the previously mentioned fact⁹⁾ that when Kim Yusin became a hwarang his followers were known by the name of the bodhi tree proper to Maitreya. There may be a hint here of connections between hwarang and primitive devotions. But the story is typical of the contents of the Samguk Yusa and has a lively attractiveness. It’s context moreover highly colours the interpretation of hwarang that the Yusa suggests. It is steeped in religion, and has no trace of militarism.

The elucidation of some of the linguistic details of the passage must await further studies in old Korean than are as yet available. The explanation that is offered of the reading of the second character on the name of Mil is odd. Professor Yang has shown that it can be read as final l in other texts of the Yusa¹⁾ But in any case the significance of the name is clear enough. We shall come across the name of Maitreya again in the stories of the hwarang. He seems almost to have been their patron.

V Later historical references.
Before going on to the investigation of the records of hwarang individuals, it will be interesting to see what
8) SKK pages 72ff.

9) See above page 13.

1) Op. cit. page 93.
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has been the tradition of the Korean historiographer of later days with regard to the question.

Three books seem worth consulting.

First the Tongguk Tonggam (東國通鑑) by Sŏ Kŏjŏng, (徐居正) completed in 1484. In this book, under the 37th year of King Chinhŭng of Silla²⁾. we find an abridged version of the passage already quoted³⁾ from the Samguk Sagi. It contains most of the part before the quotation from Kim Taemun, with a few minor changes in the characters, but stops short before the mention of statesmen and generals.

However under the accession year of the same King Chinhŭng we find the note that “Silla chose handsome boys of good character and called them pungwŏlchu (風月主), seeking good men to join the groups, to encourage filial and fraternal piety, loyalty and sincerity”. And under the 27th year a record of one Paegun (白雲) becoming a hwarang at the age of 14, otherwise known only from the Samguk Sajŏryo, (三國史節要), compiled about the same time from materials dating from a generation earlier than the Tongguk T’onggam.

Next the Taedong Unbu Kunok (大東韻府群玉), an encyclopaedic dictionary of Korean matters compiled by Kwŏn Munhae (權文海) in 1588, contains articles on wŏnhwa, hwarang, and kuksŏn. The first two consist of short quotations from the Samguk Sagi. The third notes that kuksŏn is the same as hwarang. It says again that Paegun (白雲) became a kuksŏn at the age of fourteen but in the reign of King Chinp’yŏng (眞平王 579~632). Another reference is added, to Min Chongyu (聞宗儒 1245-1324), the distinguished statesman of Koryŏ who as an infant prodigy of learning was taken into the court and favour of the King. He is therefore compared to the young hwarang.

2) Tongguk Tonggam 東國通鑑 卷五.

3) See above page 16.

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Again we notice a tendency to sidestep any military aspects of hwarang history.

Lastly there is the Haedong Yŏksa (海東繹史) of the later eighteenth century, compiled by Han Ch’iyŏn (韓到淵). This quotes the same piece of the Sagi as does the Tongguk T’onggam, prefixing it with the quotation given in the Sagi as from Ling-hu Ch’eng, but here ascribed to the Ta-chung I-shih (大中遺事) which was the book in which Ling-hu himself had quoted the sentence.

Later history books, even those written as early text books in the modern style before the Japanese annexation in 1910, never say more and usually say less than this about the hwarang. Many Koreans now middle aged are scarcely aware of having heard of hwarang until after the liberation in 1945. The tradition of the historians was limited, and it is most noticeable that the idea of hwarang as a military cult does not become prominent until the days when the Japanese are promoting the idea of bushido (武士道). Either from imitation or emulation, it is at that time that the hwarang are presented as primarily military. How much justification there was for this attitude we shall find in considering the accounts of individual hwarang in the Sagi and the Yusa.

IV Individual Hwarang
There are a number of hwarang recorded by name in the sources. Their biographies, or the anecdotes about them, throw a little light on the hwarang institution in almost every case, so the examination of each indiviaual has more value than the mere creation of a list of names.

We have already mentioned a few hwarang by name: Sŏrwŏn, presumed to be the same man as Wŏllang⁴⁾, of whom nothing more is known than has already been

4) See above pages 18 and 23.
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said; and Paegun, who is mentioned, on what original authority we do not know, in the Tongguk T’onggam⁵⁾ But neither of these gives much information about the status or activity of hwarang that is not implicit in the two accounts of the institution already given, beyond the fact that Paegun was married, and the age at which he became a hwarang was fourteen.

References to hwarang in the Samguk Sagi and the Samguk Yusa may be divided into two kinds: the biographies or anecdotes which tell us definitely of any man that he was made a hwarang or had been one; and the references to men whose names are given with the suffix nang (郞), which is reasonably supposed to indicate that the man was in fact a hwarang. In the latter cases there are sufficient indications in the majority of the stories, as will become evident, to establish the principle.

It seems best to take them in chronological order before considering the differences between the general impressions made by the sum of the accounts in each book. The earliest actually dated is Sadaham in the Sagi in 562; the latest is Hyojong in the Yusa in the second half of the ninth century, thus covering a range of some three hundred years.

Sadaham (斯多含) was of noble birth, since he was not only a descendant of an earlier ruler, but belonged to the aristocratic rank known as chin’gol (眞骨) the second of the exclusive and aristocratic so-called “bone ranks” of Silla. It seems from the Sagi⁶⁾ account that although he was a youth of excellent character he was not able to become a hwarang as soon as some of his friends thought he was worthy. When he did, his followers (從) numbered a thousand, and he was
5) See above page 29.

6) 史記卷四十四 Sadaham is obviously a Silla name transliterated in Chinese. I follow normal Korean practice by transcribing all names in modern Korean pronunciation, except the few where Dr. Yang has suggested an old Korean pronunciation. Cf. above page 7 note 2.

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personally interested in all of them.

At that time, A.D. 562⁷⁾ the king ordered Isabu (異斯 夫) to attack the little state of Kaya (加耶 or Kara 加羅 or Karak 駕洛), and Sadaham begged to be commissioned in the expeditionary force. In view of his extreme youth (he was about 15 or 16 years old), the king was reluctant, but he finally gave in and commissioned the lad as a commander (貴幢裨將). Sadaham then persuaded Isabu to let him and his large band of followers lead off with the attack on the gate of Chŏndallyang (旃檀梁), which they took by surprise and thereby brought the war to an early conclusion.

As a reward the boy was given three hundred prisoners of war for his own, but he set them all free. So the king tried to reward him with land, but it was only when pressed by the royal will that he accepted anything at all.

Very shortly afterwards, when Sadaham was seventeen, his friend Mugwan (武官), with whom he had sworn friendship to death, died of sickness. Sadaham mourned him for seven days, and then died himself.

An interesting story in many ways. It reveals several facts about the hwarang and their times. Firstly we learn of the rank from which hwarang were taken, the chin’gol in this case. Secondly that he became a hwarang at the age of fifteen or earlier, but there was some delay about it. Thirdly that although he was a hwarang he had some difficulty in getting permission to take a leading part in the war, or for that matter to get into the war at all, even though it was an aggressive war planned in advance by the king who himself founded the hwarang, Chinhŭng. Lastly we seem here to to find a suggestion that the members of his band were not called hwarang themselves, but are referred to only as nangdo, the followers of the hwarang. The suffix nang by itself

7) 三國 史記 卷四.
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however is given in the case of the name of Mugwan-nang, Sadaham’s bosom friend, who is unlikely to have been less than equal to him in rank, and so offers another indication that we can rely on the fact that this suffix as a title does indicate that a man was a hwarang.

The next group of hwarang known to us by name belong to the reign of the following king, Chinp’yŏng (眞平王 579-632). It is again in the Sagi that we find the name of Kim Hŭmch’un (金欽春). His son held the same rank as Sadaham’s father (級飡). His name is also written Kim Hŭmsun (金欽純). He was grandfather of the famous general Kim Yŏngyun (金令胤). He was an upright and excellent youth and became a hwarang. Later, under King Munmu (文武王 661-681) he became prime minister (宰臣) and filled the office with honour. In 660 he was ordered by the king to go out with Kim Yusin⁸⁾ to assist the T’ang general Su Ting-fang (蘇定方) in the war against Paekche. They commanded 50,000 men. At the battle of Hwangsan (黃山 now Yŏnsan 連山) he encouraged his son Pan’gul (盤屈) to go into the thick of the battle where it was almost certain he would be killed. He was. It is not recorded that Pan’gul was a hwarang.⁹⁾

The Yusa lists under the same reign (Chinp’yŏng), three hwarang names, and assigns to each a number. No 5 Kŏryŏl (居烈), No 6 Silch’ŏ (實處 or Tolch’ŏ 突處), and No 7 Podong (寶同).¹⁾ They are told of as going to visit the Diamond Mountains (楓岳) with their followers. The story is of little historical interest with regard to hwarang as it deals chiefly with how they stopped on the way because of heavenly portents, which were removed by the efforts of a monk, whose song is preserved.²⁾ At the same time some Japanese visitors or raiders

8) See below, page 35.

9) 史記 卷四十七

1) 遺事 卷七 融天師彗星歌

2) See below, page 48.

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withdrew to their own country. The story is mainly interesting as a specific instance of hwarang travelling to distant mountains.

The Yusa also contains another hwarang of the same reign. This is in many ways an odd tale even for the Yusa. It tells of a monk called Hyesuk (惠宿) who had belonged to the band of the hwarang Hose (好世). The principal story about him is told as happening after he had retired and become a monk, and Hose had “removed his name from the Yellow Book (黃卷)”, which evidently means that he had retired from the ranks of the hwarang. However twenty years later another hwarang, the kuksŏn Kudam (瞿旵), comes hunting near the place where Hyesuk is living, and the story really concerns their meeting. They begin by stripping off their clothes and racing and playing together. Kudam is upbraided in a particularly unpleasant fashion by the monk for his selfishness and greediness, when the monk ironically offers the boy a piece cut from his own leg after Kudam has wolfed all the fish they were sharing.

For our purposes the chief point of interest is the Yellow Book. It may have been the name of the roll of hwarang, or it may have been a conventional phrase for retirement to say that his name was “removed from the Yellow Book” since in earlier days the word was used in China to refer to important records.³⁾ But we also note that an ex-hwarang follower might become a monk.

Also for the reign of Chinp’yŏng is recorded the name of Pihyŏng (鼻荆郞).⁴⁾ He is presumed to be a hwarang only because of the character suffixed to his name. The story tells how he was born to a woman whom the king Chinji (眞智王 576-579) had loved, but as a result of the king’s intercourse with her sometime after his death. The boy was taken into the palace, but from the time he was fifteen he used to go off every
3) The story is in the Yusa 卷四 二惠同塵. For the Yellow Book see also below page 39.

4) 運事 卷一 挑花女

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night to streams and hills where he met and sported with the spirits (鬼). He was persuaded by the king to get the spirits to build a large bridge, and even to find a suitable spirit to help with the government, who was adopted into a noble family and was very useful, but finally turned into a fox and had to be chased and killed by Pihyŏng himself.

Whatever may be the facts behind this weird tale, we notice that the age of the hwarang is fifteen, and that he plays by streams. His power over the spirits seems to be unusual, and is remarked as such by the king. Nevertheless, it must be an old tradition about the hwarang that he could control the spirits.

With the next man we are on much surer historical ground, as one generally feels when dealing with the Sagi. This man is kim Yu-sin (金庾信), one of the greatest of Korea’s heroes.⁵⁾ The Yusa also contains a story about him, saying he became a kuksŏn and a skilled swordsman at 18, but it is full of apparitions and wonders. The Sagi treats him to a longer biography than any other individual of any kind, allowing him three complete sections (卷) to himself. He became a hwarang at fifteen, and we have already twice noted that at that time his followers were given a name connected with the Maitreya Buddha. Perhaps no other hwarang has contributed so much to the current popular idea of the institution as Kim Yusin. He has been built into novels⁶⁾ and his part in the wars through which Silla united the whole peninsula under her rule has contributed to the oft repeated statement that the purpose of the hwarang was for the fighting of this war. Even elements in his story which are not clearly connected with his status as a hwarang have been transferred to all hwarang. A striking example is that of his vigil in the rock cave of Chungak (中嶽). It fits so easily into popular ideas about the initiation of a mediaeval

5) 史記卷四十一, 四十ニ, 四十三, 遺事 卷一 金庚信

6) e.g., Chu Yosup (朱耀燮) Kim Yusin, the Romances of a Korean Warrior of the 7th Century (in English), Seoul 1947.

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knight. Sometimes elaborate descriptions of the investiture of a hwarang have been invented.⁷⁾

However the evidence of his military appointment comes when he is 34 years old. The rest of his story is of his sagacity and courage as a general. He was the most famous general in the wars of unification. He was present fighting with the armies of T’ang when Paekche was defeated in 660, and again at the battle of P’yŏng- yang in the following year.

He lived to the remarkable age of 79, and was given a magnificent state funeral. He had five sons, four daughters and at least one bastard.⁸⁾ This last fact reminds us that chastity has never been proposed as binding on the hwarang. In fact Kim Yusin has left a legacy of folktales clearly demonstrating that in his youth—the very period when he should have been most active as a hwarang—he was involved in illicit liaisons.⁹⁾

Here is the military hwarang par excellence. But the honest reader must note that the Sagi really tells us practically nothing about the difference it made to Kim Yusin that he was ever a hwarang. For all that the Sagi has so much to say of him, he may well have been just one of those “great generals” who rose from the hwarang ranks.

The next examples come from the period of Kim Yusin’s life. In the year 627¹⁾ there was a famine in the land as a result of which some of the young people stole grain. One man called Kŏmgun (劍君) refused to share in it. He was a follower of the hwarang

7) Cf., Chu Yosup. op. cit. pages 3ff. This is a pleasant tissue of material from the Yusa etc, but it is quite without any historical warranty. Also 孫晋泰 韓國民族史槪論 (Seoul, 1948) p. 129.

8) 三國史記 卷四十三

9) Cf. Ch’oe Sangsu (崔常壽) Hanguk Mingan Chŏnsŏl Chip (韓國民問傳 說集) Seoul 1958, page 214. The same story is to be found in the Tongguk Yoji Sungnam (東國與地勝覽 卷二十ᅳ 天官寺).

1) 三國史記 卷四十八

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Kŭnnang (近郞). In fear lest he should reveal their crime, his companions resolved to kill him. He knew of this, and in spite of the fact that Kŭnnang tried to dissuade him, he went to the banquet at which he knew that he was to be served poison, and ate it and died.

When Kŏmgun protested that he would not share the grain, he said that since he had learned p’ungwŏl from Kŭnnang he could not do it. The story is quoted to demonstrate the principles inculcated in hwarang training. Yet it was Kŭnnang, the hwarang, who tried to persuade his inferior, Kŏmgun, to run away rather than be a martyr for honesty.

No indication of the ages of people is given in this story, but Kŏmgun’s rank as a local official is given (舍人). It is well down in the list of precedence.

Kim Hŭmun (金歆運) died in battle in 655, although it had been pointed out to him that he could have avoided the engagement and that his death would probably never be known as a glorious one. As a boy he had been in the band of the hwarang Munno (文努), and heard the praises of the glory of those who died in battle and had been inspired by them, so that people said that he would never turn back if he ever went on the battlefield. He was another involved in the wars of unification.

But the compiler of the Sagi adds to his account of Kim Humun²⁾ a quotation (論) from his earlier account of the foundation of hwarang, including the quotation from Kim Taemun about generals and statesmen (with the variations in characters that were followed by Sŏ Kŏjŏng in editing the Tongguk T’onggam),³⁾ and adds that this is an example of what Kim Taemun meant. He says that by the third generation of hwarang there were more than two hundred of them,

2) 三國 史記 卷四十七

3) See above page 29.

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and all their names and great deeds are recorded in their biographies (傳記).

The only remaining example in the Yusa is that of Kwanch’ang (官昌).⁴⁾ His name is sometimes given as Kwanjang (官狀). He was a soldier’s son, who became a hwarang as a boy, and was an expert horseman and archer by the time he was sixteen. He was apparently very little older when he was a commander in the army fighting against Paekche at the battle of Hwangsan (黃山 now Yŏnsan) in 660. His father encouraged him to go into the thick of the battle, and he was captured, but the Paekche general on seeing the face of a boy when the vizor was lifted, refused. to kill him, and sent him back because he was so young. The lad stayed just long enough to drink some water from his cupped hands and returned to the battle. This time he was killed and his head was sent back on a horse. He was posthumously honoured with a title by the King. The record is astonishingly alive when it speaks of the words of the father on receiving his son’s head. He wiped the blood with his sleeve and said, “My boy’s face seems alive. But he died for the king. There is nothing to grieve about”.

Kwanch’ang and Kim Hŭmun are the last hwarang recorded in the Sagi with glorious battlefield deaths. Hence the appending of the quotation from Kim Taemun after the end of the account of Hŭmun, who comes last, in spite of the reverse in the chronological order of his death and Kwanch’ang’s. After this the only hwarang mentioned in the Sagi come in the story of Kŏmgun given above. We have no more stories so good of military hwarang, for these are notably missing from the Yusa, where the remainder of our material is to be found. However the Yusa does record the death of two more hwarang at the battle of Yŏnsan: Changch’ullang (長春郞) and P’arang (罷郞). It says

4) 三國史記 卷四十七
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no more than that their spirits later appeared to the king in a dream and had to be helped with buddhist prayers⁵⁾.

Nevertheless there is an unmistakably military air about the story of Taemara (竹旨 or 竹曼 or 智官) and the young Siro (written as 得烏 or 谷烏)⁶⁾. They are recorded as of the time of King Hyoso (孝昭王 692-702). Siro was of medium rank and had “been enrolled in the Yellow Book of P’ungnyu”(隷名於風流黃卷). The story speaks in terms of almost military discipline. Siro disappeared for ten days. Since he belonged to Taemara’s band, Taemara enquired of the youth’s mother where he was. (There is actually no note of his age, but the presumption is that he was still a mere lad). She said that he had been given an appointment by a provincial official named Iksŏn (益宣). A band of 137 set out with Taemara to find him. Iksŏn finally gave him up only as the result of a generous bribe. This news came to the ears of the hwaju (花主, presumably the hwarang leader), who had Iksŏn punished.

The Yusa chapter closes with an account of the mysterious events before the birth of Taemara. The suggestion is that his birth was due to the intervention, if not the actual transmigration of the soul, of a hermit from Chukchiryŏng or Taemara Pass (竹旨嶺), whence his name. We note that an image of Maitreya was set up in memory of the hermit.

Taemara was a lieutenant of Kim Yusin during the unification wars, and Siro’s song in his honour is recorded. He was also Prime Minister of Silla (宰相).

If the chronology is correct, the abduction of Siro must have happened more than thirty years after the time that Taemara had been associated with Kim Yusin,

5) 遺事 卷一 長春郞.

6) 遺事 卷二 孝昭王代 See also below page 49. For the Korean readings of the names see Yang Chudong, op. cit. pp. 69ff.

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because the Yusa account says that he served under Queen Chindŏk, (who reigned from 647 to 654) as well as the subsequent kings. Assuming him to have been very young at the time, he could not have been under fifty by the time of King Hyoso. This is older than the other evidence leads one to expect to find an active hwarang. But one feels always wary about the accuracy of the Yusa, and not much could be reliably built on its chronology in such details, especially since the main purpose of the author in telling the stories at all seems to be the recording of adventures and wonders. Mishina suggests that the incident belongs to the reign of Chinp’yŏng, and only the song to the reign of Hyoso⁷⁾. But maybe the explanation is even simpler than that. The compiler knew that Taemara had served as minister under four kings, the last of whom was Sinmun (神文) whose reign immediately preceded that of Hyoso. Although the chronological system of the anecdotal sections of the Yusa does not have the rigidity of the Sagi, it would have been tempting for the compiler, if he did not know exactly when the Siro incident took place, to have given the story of Taemara under the reign in which it was presumed that Taemara died. The general chronological carelessness of the section is shown by the fact that the story of Taemara’s birth is given after the story of the Siro incident, and that Giro’s song, said to have been composed “earlier” (初), is given right at the end. The important fact that emerges out of all this being that the story of Taemara and Siro does not give us the evidence, which is equally lacking elsewhere, that the hwarang initiates remained hwarang all their lives. The others stories in the Yusa indicate that a man could leave the hwarang. There is no reason to suppose that “once a hwarang always a hwarang”. It seems to me far more probable that as the boys grew up they ceased to be regarded as hwarang.

However here we have our second reference to the
7) SKK p.66. Cf. also 三國史記 卷第五 眞德王 三年
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Yellow Book, and our first to the hwaju, who seems to have been a person of considerable influence. It is not stated that Iksŏn was a hwarang, but on the other hand it is not stated that he was not, so we cannot say whether there was any particular jurisdiction being exercised by the hwaju over him. No indication of Taemara’s rank is given, but Iksŏn is stated to hold a rank (阿干) three degrees higher than that (級干) held by Siro.

In the Yusa chapter⁸⁾ about the image of Buddha at Paengnyul-sa (栢栗寺), there is a story of another hwarang of Hyoso’s reign. He is actually said to have been a kuksŏn. He is spoken of as having a thousand men with “gemmed shoes” (珠履), among whom his best friend was Ansang (安常). His own name was Purye (夫禮). He went off with his men to the mountains of Kangwŏn province to a place called Kŭmnan (金蘭, now T’ongch’ ŏn 通川), and there he was captured by bandits—possibly Malgal (靺鞨) tribespeople. The rest of the story tells of how he was joined by Ansang, how the King was much distressed at his loss, and went to consult the sacred harp (玄琴) and pipe (神笛), but found them missing too. The parents of Purye prayed to the buddha in Paengnyul-sa for some days, when suddenly he and his friend appeared behind the image, bringing the lost musical instruments.

At the end of the chapter the compiler adds that the popular opinion that Ansang was a member of the band of the hwarang Chunyŏng (俊永郞) is unprovable. It was known that Chinjae (眞材), Pŏnhwan(繁完) and others belonged to Chunyŏng’s group, but it was not possible to tell them all.

So far as this story throws any light on the nature of the hwarang it is chiefly in giving us yet another example of the journey to the distant mountains of
8) 遗事 卷三 栢栗寺.
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Kangwŏn, and although there is no definite description, the story does seem again to assume a degree of organization in the hwarang groups. It would read, as would other stories, very intelligently, if the word kuksŏn meant the hwarang leader. However it reads equally well if it does not. There is nothing warlike about the characters. But they are living after the period of Silla’s great military glory.

The next recorded name of a hwarang is half a century later, and by the time he comes into the records he is no longer a hwarang⁹⁾. This is Wŏlmyŏng, the buddhist monk (月 明師). In the nineteenth year of King Kyŏngdŏk (景德王 742-765) two suns appeared side by side in sky, and stayed like that for ten days. A soothsayer said that when the right monk (緣僧) appeared and chanted a hymn, the portent would pass away. So an appropriate altar was prepared by the King. The monk who passed by in such a way as to satisfy the requiremenents was Wŏlmyŏng. He protested that he had belonged to a hwarang band (國仙之從), and so could compose a song in Korean (鄉歌) but was not expert enough to do so in Sanskrit. Nevertheless the king insisted, the song was sung, and the sun came right again. The song is recorded¹⁾.

The chief interest in the story for our present purpose is the note that he had left the hwarang band, though it must be noted that he is not explicitly stated to have been a hwarang himself. Also that the ability to sing songs in Korean is a natural result of having been a hwarang. There is some interest too in the fact that the story has further elements of Maitreya worship in it. When the King rewarded Wŏlmyŏng, the gifts of tea and crystal rosary beads which he gave him were removed by a pretty boy who disappeared into a picture of Maitreya. But this aspect of the tale and the song

9) 逮事 卷五 月明師환率歌.

1) See below page 50.

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itself must be dealt with a little later²⁾.

Our next hwarang is very near in date to Wŏlmyŏng if not actually contemporary. His name is Kilbo (耆婆)³⁾ and he is known only through a song addressed to him by a buddhist monk4) It is in this song that we find the title hwap’an5) given to Kilbo. His name is buddhist, and suggests longevity.

The next example comes from the reign of Honan (憲安857-861) a century later than Kilbo. It is actually a story of the King Kyŏngmun (景文 reigned 861-875), who as Ungnyŏm (膺廉) became a kuksŏn at the age of eighteen. The previous king had called him when he was still a hwarang and asked him the most wonderful thing he had seen on his hwarang journeys. He said he had seen a man of high worth take a low seat, a rich man wearing simple clothing, and a nobleman who concealed his splendour. As a result of the good character shown by these answers he was married to the king’s daughter and appointed successor to the king, who had no sons. Later in life he himself arranged for hwarang to go to the Kŭmnan⁶⁾ mountains and there four of them composed 300 songs (possibly in honour of the number canonized in the Shih-ching) to help with the governing of the country. The Yusa preserves the names of the songs, but not the texts⁷⁾.

In the reign of Hŏngang (憲康 875-886) we have the name of Ch’oyong (處容). He was said to be one of the seven sons of the Dragon of the Eastern Sea (東海龍). These had all danced before the king. Ch’oyong had gone to court and later married a beautiful girl
2) See below pages 50 and 62.

3) For this reading of the Chinese characters in old Korean see Yang Chudong, op, cit., page 319.

4) See below page 51.

5) See above page 7.

6) 遺事 卷二, 四十八景文大王.

7) The names of the other hwarang mentioned are kuksŏn Yowŏn (邀元), Yŏhun (譽听). Kyewŏn(桂元) and Sukchong (叔宗).

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given to him by the king. A disease spirit took the form of a man and got into bed with her. Ch’oyong drove it away with a famous song and dance. He therefore became regarded as a man powerful with demons, and his picture was later used to frighten devils from houses. This is an interesting case of hwarang and shamanism being connected. The song will be dealt with presently⁸⁾.

The last recorded hwarang name is that of Hyojong (孝宗)⁹⁾. He was of the time of Queen Chinsŏng (眞聖女王 887-897). We hear of his dancing at the Namsan Posŏkchŏng (鲍石亭), a well-known haunt of spirits, and of his relief assistance to a needy family of an old woman and her daughter, in which all his followers cooperated¹⁾. This is the nearest thing in all the hwarang stories to any note of chivalrous action to damsels in distress. But he was really helping the family, not rescuing the girl.

Ch’oe Namsŏn (崔南善) in his edition of the Yusa treated one more name as being that of a hwarang. This was Kim Hyŏn (金現)²⁾. The story about him is concerned with wonders involving tigers who are really pretty girls, and Kim’s romances. Since the title nang is not added to his name, but he is merely described as nanggun (郞君), it seems very doubtful whether he was a hwarang or not. In any case the story has no hints that I can recognize as at all helping in our understanding of the hwarang and their practices or purposes.

Apart from a few details, such as the Yellow Book and the exact age at which they became hwarang— always in the teens and mostly early on—these accounts
8) See below page 52. The story of Ch’oyong is in the Yusa 卷二 處容歌.

1) 遺事 卷五 貧女養母

2) Yusa 卷五. The character (郞) is also suffixed to the name of the third century Yŏnorang (延鳥節), but the date and legend logether make it clear he was not a hwarang.
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of individuals really do little more than support the accounts given with regard to the earlier founding of hwarang by King Chinhŭng. We know that some of them were soldiers; we know some details of the journeys that some of them took to visit distant mountains—generally the Diamond Mountains. We have more information about their musical activities. We learn that they could and did retire from the hwarang: it was not a case of once a hwarang always a hwarang. We have one possible, but very doubtful, instance of an elderly man, Taemara, being concerned in the administration of hwarang. We have a number of stories of shamanistic activities.

The correct interpretation of all these facts depends on the attitude which we take towards the books in which they are recorded. No-one will feel very surprised to find that the military hwarang are mostly found in the writings of the soldier statesman Kim Pusik, while the eldritch stories of the Yusa stress the religious element in their activity and their buddhist connections. But this division depending on prejudice and personality is a valuable reminder that the apparent distinction in time, by which the military lads all appear to have lived in the first century of hwarang history, and which may lead us to a simple explanation by which after the occasion of war was removed the institution deteriorated until it became effete, is not necessarily valid in all respects. Because the military stories are all done with by the middle of the seventh century, it does not follow that the dancing and singing and courting of spirits never happened in the same early period, or were not equally important at that time.

On the other hand it must be admitted that the accounts of the institution of hwarang, backed by the quotation from Ch’oe Ch’iwŏn, are very late indeed. It could be argued that they represent a late tradition, emphasizing the current activities of hwarang in the late [page 46] Silla period, whereas in their earlier days it was the warriors of Hwangsan who had been typical of the institution and its purpose. This is the common interpretation given today. Unfortunately it is not in fact the only possible interpretation of the sources, nor necessarily the best from the historian’s point of view. It is as likely that the warrior boys were a transitory phenomenon in an institution which was primarily religious or moral. I have pointed out several times already the details which I believe weaken the case for interpreting the hwarang as essentially military, even in the Sagi accounts of the heroes. It seems most likely that hwarang were to the people of Silla something of what the Boy Scouts or the Boys’ Brigade have been to the English in this century: a band of adolescents of high purpose, who could not avoid being both religious and at least quasi-military, sometimes very military, because that was the nature and need of the society in which they lived.