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

Text for the Great Year rite held at Gangan Hall in the last month of the season康安殿季月大歲道場文

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 · 86 Chinese characters · reading time 0.9 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.

三身覺帝。開妙藏以演宣。百部靈官。聞微言而歡喜。眷惟沖眇。職此艱難。天吏相循。常懼虞疑之漸。后祇方王。益憂發洩之災。招集緇流。暢弘聖典。伏願佛所護念。神罔怨恫。爰處爰居。求擁康寧之慶。可長可久。益延胡考之休。

The king of enlightenment who bears the three bodies opens and unrolls the wondrous store of scripture, and the divine officers of every department hear the hidden words and rejoice.

Looking back, with a young and worthless body I have taken charge of this difficult seat. The officers of Heaven come round upon one another, so that I always dread a doubtful omen; and the god of Earth is just now at his height, so that I grieve the more over calamity seeping forth. I call and gather the monks and spread wide the holy scripture.

Prostrate, I pray that the Buddha may guard and hold me in mind, and that the gods may have no resentment or pain. Let me embrace, wherever I dwell, the happy fortune of ease and health; and long and enduringly let the beauty of long life be lengthened the more.