Beopun法雲
1Beopun — King Jinheung sets up the wonhwa and establishes the hwarang
釋法雲．俗名公夌宗。諡曰真興。而法興王弟葛文王之子也。母金氏。生七歲即位。克寬克仁。敬事而信。聞善若驚。除惡務本。七年興輪寺成。許人出家為僧尼。八年命大阿餐柒夫等廣集文士。修撰國史。十年梁遣使。與入學僧覺德送佛舍利。王使群臣奉迎興輪寺前路。十四年命有司築新宮於月城東。黃龍見其地。王疑之改為佛寺。號曰黃龍。二十六年陳遣使劉思及僧明觀。送釋氏經論七百餘卷。二十七年祇園實際二寺成。而黃龍亦畢功。三十三年十月為戰死士卒設八關齋會於外寺。七日乃罷。三十五年鑄黃龍寺丈六像。或傳阿育王所泛船載黃金至絲浦。輸入而鑄焉。語在慈藏傳。三十六年丈六出淚至踵。三十七年始奉原花為仙郎。初君臣病無以知人。欲使類聚群遊．以觀其行儀。舉而用之。遂簡美女二人。曰南無．曰俊貞。聚徒三百餘人。二女爭妍。貞引南無。強勸酒醉。而投河殺之。徒人失和而罷。其後選取美貌男子。傳粉粧飾之。奉為花郎。徒眾雲集。或相磨以道義。或相悅以歌樂。娛遊山水。無遠不至。因此知人之邪正。擇其善者薦之於朝。故金大問世記云。賢佐忠臣。從此而秀。良將猛卒。由是而生。崔致遠鸞郎碑序曰。國有玄妙之道。曰風流。實乃包含三教。接化群生。且如入則孝於家。出則忠於國。魯司寇之旨也。處無為之事。行不言之教。周柱史之宗也。諸惡莫作。眾善奉行。竺乾太子之化也。又唐令狐澄新羅國記云。擇貴人子弟之美者傳粉粧飾。而奉之名曰花郎。國人皆尊事之。此蓋王化之方便也。自原郎至羅末。凡二百餘人。其中四仙最賢。且如世記中。王幼年即祚。一心奉佛。至末年祝髮為浮屠。被法服自號法雲。受持禁戒。三業清淨。遂以終焉。及其薨也。國人以禮葬于哀公寺之北峯。是歲安含法師至自隋。至安含傳辨之。
The monk Beopun (法雲) had the worldly name Gongneungjong (公夌宗), and his posthumous name is Jinheung (真興). He was the son of the galmun king, the younger brother of King Beopheung, and his mother was of the Kim clan. He ascended the throne at the age of seven. He was generous and he was benevolent, reverent in his affairs and true to his word. When he heard a good word he was startled by it, and in rooting out evil he worked at the root.
In his seventh year Heungnyunsa was completed, and people were allowed to leave the household life and become monks and nuns. In his eighth year he ordered Geochilbu, of the rank of daeachan, and others to gather men of letters widely and compile the national history. In his tenth year Liang sent an envoy who brought relics of the Buddha along with Gakdeok (覺德), a monk who had gone abroad to study, and the king had his officials receive them on the road before Heungnyunsa.
In his fourteenth year he ordered the office in charge to build a new palace east of Wolseong, and a yellow dragon appeared on that ground. The king thought it strange, and he changed the building into a monastery and named it Hwangnyong (黃龍), the yellow dragon. In his twenty-sixth year Chen sent the envoy Liu Si (劉思) and the monk Myeonggwan (明觀) with more than seven hundred volumes of Buddhist sutras and treatises. In his twenty-seventh year the two monasteries Giwonsa and Siljesa were completed, and the work at Hwangnyongsa was also finished. In the tenth month of his thirty-third year, for the soldiers who had died in battle, a palgwanjae assembly was held at a monastery outside the city, and it ended after seven days. In his thirty-fifth year the sixteen-foot image of Hwangnyongsa was cast. Some hand down that the gold carried on the ship set adrift by King Ashoka reached Sapo (絲浦), and that it was brought in and cast. That story is in the account of Jajang. In his thirty-sixth year the sixteen-foot image shed tears down to its heels.
In his thirty-seventh year the wonhwa (原花) were first raised up and made seollang (仙郎). At the start the king and his officials were troubled that they had no way to know people, and they wished to have the young gather in bands and roam together, so that they might watch their conduct and their bearing and choose men for office. In the end they picked out two beautiful women, called Nammo (南無) and Junjeong (俊貞), and gathered a band of more than three hundred. The two women vied in beauty, and Junjeong led Nammo away, pressed wine on her until she was drunk, and threw her into a river and killed her. The band lost its harmony and broke up.
After that they chose young men of beautiful face, powdered and adorned them, and raised them up as hwarang (花郎), and the bands gathered like clouds. Some polished one another with what is right and dutiful, some delighted one another with song and music, and they roamed the hills and the streams, and there was nowhere so far that they did not reach it. By this the true and the false in people were known, and the good among them were chosen and recommended to the court. So the Segi (世記) of Kim Daemun says, "Worthy counsellors and loyal servants stood out from this, and good generals and fierce soldiers were born of it."
The preface to the stele of Nallang, by Choe Chiwon, says, "There is a deep and wondrous way in this country, and it is called pungnyu (風流). It truly holds the three teachings within it and leads all living beings and transforms them. To be filial at home when one comes in, and loyal to the country when one goes out, is the aim of the minister of justice of Lu (司寇). To dwell in affairs that are done without doing, and to practise the teaching that is not spoken, is the doctrine of the keeper of the archives of Zhou (柱史). To commit none of the evils and to uphold and practise all that is good is the transforming teaching of the prince of India."
And the Record of the Country of Silla (新羅國記) of Linghu Cheng (令狐澄) of Tang says, "They choose the beautiful among the sons of noble houses, powder and adorn them, and raise them up, and they are called hwarang, and all the people of the country honour and serve them." This was, in the main, a device of the king's transforming rule. From Wollang (原郎) down to the end of Silla they numbered more than two hundred, and among them the four immortals were the worthiest.
The Segi says also that the king ascended the throne in his childhood years and served the Buddha with a single heart, and that in his last years he shaved his head and became a monk, put on the robes of the Law, and called himself Beopun (法雲). He received and kept the precepts that forbid, and his three kinds of action were clear and clean to the end. When he died the people of the country buried him with the rites on the northern peak by Aegongsa. In that year the master of the Law Anham came from Sui, and this is made clear in the account of Anham.
Interlinear notes 1
公夌宗
The Samguk sagi gives King Jinheung’s worldly name as Sammaekjong (彡麥宗) or Simmaekbu (深麥夫), and the royal table of the Samguk yusa and its account of Mireuk Seonhwa also have Sammaekjong. It is the same king. — translator
2In praise — the shifting of custom is a great thing for people
贊曰：風俗之於人大矣哉。王者欲移易。於當世如水之就下。沛然孰禦哉。始真興既崇像教。設花郎之遊。國人樂從倣效。如趍寶肆。如登春臺。要其歸在乎遷善徙義。鴻漸於大道而已。彼漢哀帝徒以色是愛。故班固曰。柔曼之傾人意。非特女徒。蓋亦有男色焉。評之不可同日而語矣。
In praise it is said:
How great is the working of custom upon people. When one who is king wishes to shift and change it in his own age, it is like water going downward: it flows in a flood, and who can hold it back?
At the beginning Jinheung had already honoured the teaching of images (像教) and had set up the roaming of the hwarang, and the people of the country gladly followed and copied it, as if they were hurrying to a shop of treasures, as if they were climbing a terrace in spring. To sum up where it all tended, it lay only in this: to move toward the good, to step over to what is right, and to advance by degrees toward the great way.
Emperor Ai of Han loved nothing but beauty of face, and so Ban Gu said, "The soft and the supple that bend the hearts of people are not only the company of women. There is, in the main, the love of men (男色) as well." This is not a thing to set beside it and weigh, and the two cannot be spoken of on the same day.