Yetgeul › Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) › Book 16 — Funerary Texts

Text for the sacrifice to the five directions祭五方文

Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) 桂苑筆耕集 · Choe Chiwon · 886 (Tang, 6th year of the Zhonghe era · Silla, 12th year of King Heongang) · 1 passages · 272 Chinese characters · reading time 1.1 min

Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) Book 16 — Funerary Texts A collection Choe Chiwon made by choosing out of the writings of his four years in the headquarters of Gao Pian, military commissioner of Huainan under the Tang, binding them into twenty volumes and presenting them to King Heongang of Silla in 886. It holds 366 pieces — memorials and reports sent up to the emperor, the proclamation denouncing Huang Chao, letters to the several military commissioners, orders and dispatches issued to those under him, Daoist and Buddhist texts for services, funeral offerings, records written for the outer wall of Chengdu and for a painting of Annam, and the reports and poems he sent up to Gao Pian. Here is the first report, which begins "I am a man of Silla," and the proclamation against Huang Chao with its line, "Not only do all the men of the world think to kill you openly; the ghosts under the earth have already discussed cutting you down in secret." The last volume holds the poems he made on the voyage home to the country he had left at twelve. It is the oldest collection by a Korean that survives, and when Hong Seokju and Seo Yugu printed it with movable type in 1834 they called it "the root and the beginning of the writing of our Eastern Country." Their two prefaces are translated with it.

1To Goumang, Zhurong, Rushou, Xuanming, and Houtu

年月日。具銜某謹以淸酌庶羞量幣之奠。敢昭告于五方神之靈。傳不云乎。五行之官。是謂五官。封爲上公。祀爲貴神。社稷五祀。是尊是奉。木正曰勾芒。火正曰祝融。金正曰蓐收。水正曰玄冥。土正曰后土。是以。禮云共工氏之霸九州也。其子曰后土。能平九州。故祀以爲社。然則神主順天。靈功莫測。諸侯列土。祀典宜行。惟夫人寔統陰祗。廣含坤德。身爲萬物之母。首冠五方之君。職奉軒皇。功標國社。殷湯罷改遷之議。漢武陳祠祭之誠。是知神鑑則無偏無頗。物情則以享以祀。昔平九土。旣能疏決江河。今處五方。豈不庇安淮海。靈其調和於金木水火。驅役於風雨雪霜。使春夏秋冬永息災殃之氣。東西南北靜除氛祲之源。牢幣具陳。庶羞甚潔。致敬不虧於中霤。施恩幸滿於大藩。唯候豐穰。冀神報塞。尙饗。

Year, month, day. So-and-so, with his titles set out, with an offering of clear wine, many dishes, and measured silk, dares to announce brightly to the spirits of the gods of the five directions. Does the Zuo zhuan not say, "The officers of the five phases are called the five ministers. They are enfeoffed as high dukes and sacrificed to as honored gods, and at the altars of soil and grain and in the five sacrifices they are honored and served. The rectifier of wood is called Goumang, the rectifier of fire Zhurong, the rectifier of metal Rushou, the rectifier of water Xuanming, and the rectifier of earth Houtu." And so the Book of Rites says, "When the clan of Gonggong held sway over the nine provinces, his son was called Houtu. He could bring the nine provinces to order, and so he was sacrificed to as the god of the soil." That being so, the god presides over compliance with Heaven and his numinous merit cannot be fathomed, and when a lord receives a portion of land it is fitting that the canon of sacrifice be carried out. Only the Lady Houtu truly commands the spirits of yin and holds broadly the virtue of earth. Her body is the mother of the ten thousand things, and her head is first among the lords of the five directions. Her office serves Emperor Xuanyuan, and her merit is marked at the altar of the state. Tang of Yin put a stop to the proposal to change the altar and move it, and Wu of Han set forth his sincerity in shrine and sacrifice. From this it is known that the god's discernment has no leaning and no slant, and that the feeling of things is to make offering and to sacrifice. Of old she brought the nine soils to order and could open and channel the rivers. Now that she dwells over the five directions, will she not shelter and settle Huaihai? May the spirit bring metal, wood, water, and fire into harmony and set wind, rain, snow, and frost to work, so that in spring, summer, autumn, and winter the air of disaster is stilled forever, and in east, west, south, and north the source of baleful vapor is quietly removed. The victim and the silk are set out in full, and the many dishes are very clean. The reverence brought is not wanting at the place of the god of the house, and may the grace bestowed fill this great province. We wait only on a rich harvest and hope the god will answer and requite. Come and partake.

‹ Text for the sacrifice to the god of the soil at the building of the Yangma Wall Contents Rite-text for the late Vice Director of Zhaoyi — the second ›Listen to this piece