Text for the Spirit-Kings rite for the lengthening of life, held according to the state's divination國卜延壽神王道場文
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 · 112 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.
The compassionate Elder of a hundred thousand million transformation-bodies spreads wide his marvelous store, and the holy scripture that holds the names of the seventeen spirits broadly benefits living beings as many as the sands of the Ganges.
I consider that this young body of mine has presumed to come to the great seat. Though I gather the gates and share the borders, the sources of ill and of blessing cannot all be known; so I had the divining board (式棋) set straight and the omens of fortune and misfortune examined. We have entered the last of the autumn season, and it is said that the sprouting of this month's ill luck must accordingly be stopped.
So I knock for the help of enlightenment and spread out the Buddha's rite. I gather a pure company in quilted robes to unroll and read the divine teaching of the scripture rolled upon jade rollers.
Leaning upon this surpassing cause, may I deeply receive the help of wisdom, so that before the omen shows itself calamity and peril melt away like thawing ice, and the fortune I enjoy be without end, luxuriant as bamboo growing in clumps.