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 · 110 Chinese characters · reading time 1.2 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.

水失性則爲災。自古所患。佛隨機而應物。無求不從。眷彼大江。攝于隣國。歲漂流其民。戶日朘削於我疆。以人力之區區。固難障塞。投覺慈之浩浩。佇借神通。玆遣朝臣。伻嚴齊範。辦天廚之淨饌。燒海岸之名香。伏願甘露普霑。狂瀾永息。農桑千里。永無蹙國之虞。煙火萬家。盡遂安生之樂。

When water loses its own nature it becomes a calamity, and this has been a care from of old; the Buddha answers to things according to their capacities, and there is nothing he does not follow when he is sought.

Looking to that great river, it lies athwart a neighboring country, and year by year the people are washed away and day by day houses are cut off from our borders. With the petty strength of men it is truly hard to hold it back. We go to the vast, vast compassion of enlightenment and wait to borrow its divine power.

So I send a minister of the court to furnish strictly the rite of the offering-feast; we prepare the pure food of the heavenly kitchen and burn famous incense from the seashore.

Prostrate, I pray that the sweet dew may moisten far and wide and the maddened waves cease forever. Let farming and silkworm-rearing go on for a thousand li, so that there is never a fear of the land shrinking; and let the smoke of cooking rise from ten thousand houses, so that all may attain the joy of dwelling in peace.

‹ Text for the Spirit-Kings rite for the lengthening of life, held according to the state's divinationContentsText for the Mundooru (文豆婁) rite at Geumgangsa in the same Seogyeong ›Listen to this piece