Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 39

Text for the offering to the Five Buddhas at Jingangsa鎭江寺五佛齋文

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) 東國李相國集 · Yi Gyubo · Compiled 1241 (Goryeo, 28th year of King Gojong); revised and enlarged 1251 · 1 passages · 98 Chinese characters · reading time 1 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 39 The collected writings of Yi Gyubo of Goryeo, gathered and cut in woodblock by his son Yi Ham in 1241 and revised and enlarged by his grandson Yi Ikbae in 1251. It holds poems and rhapsodies, memorials and reports sent up to the king, records written for temples and pagodas, stele and tomb inscriptions, letters and prefaces, and the state letters that passed to and from the Mongols during the invasions. The Lay of King Dongmyeong, which sings the founder of Goguryeo, stands in volume 3 of the first collection, and the daily life of a man who called himself the White Cloud Layman — with his wine, his zither and his verse — fills the later collection. The book closes with the last poem he wrote as his eyes failed and he laid down the brush, and with the dirge and tomb inscription others made for him after his death.

淸淨眞身。應多天之共讚。神通妙力。廻大地以非難。逖彼鴨江。介于雁塞。役萬人而堤築。莫禦橫流。投五佛之慈悲。庶資博濟。方臨春序。爰遣使華。修雲供之熏科。禮金臺之睟相。伏願他心洞鑑。慧援周施。鎭壓狂瀾。拓我疆於有截。懷柔遠域。播王化於無垠。

The pure and clean true body is what the many heavens praise together; and for its divine and marvelous power, even turning the great earth about is no hard thing.

Far off, the Amnok River (鴨江) lies athwart the frontier, and though ten thousand men be set to building dikes, the water that overflows at will cannot be held back. We would entrust ourselves to the compassion of the Five Buddhas and borrow the power that saves far and wide. Now, as the spring season comes, we send an envoy to perform the rite of offerings spread out like clouds and to pay reverence to the pure forms upon the golden seats.

Prostrate, we pray that you look brightly into the hearts of others and bestow the help of wisdom all around. Press down the maddened waves and widen our borders in good order; soothe the distant places, so that the royal teaching spreads without end.