The Master Wolmyeong's Song of Tusita月明師兜率歌

The master Wolmyeong's Song of Tusita.

In the nineteenth year of King Gyeongdeok, the year gyeongja, on the first day of the fourth month, two suns appeared side by side, and for ten days they did not go away.

The court astrologer reported and asked, "If a monk with the right karmic bond is invited to perform the merit of scattering flowers, it can be driven away."

So a clean altar was set up at Jowonjeon, and the king went to Cheongyangnu to wait for a monk with the right bond.

At that time the master Wolmyeong (月明師) was walking along the southern path between the field paths. The king had him summoned, and ordered him to open the altar and compose a prayer.

Wolmyeong reported, "I belong only to the band of the gukseon. I know only native songs and am not practiced in Sanskrit chant."

The king said, "You have already been chosen by lot as the monk with the right bond. Even if you use a native song, it will do."

So Wolmyeong composed the Song of Tusita and recited it. Its words are these:

⟪Hyangga⟫

今日此矣散花唱良 巴寳白乎隠花良汝隐 直等隠心音矣命叱使以惡只 弥勒座主陪立羅良

In explanation it is said:

At the dragon tower this day the flower-scattering song is sung, sending up a single flower to the blue clouds. It is what an earnest and steadfast heart commands, welcoming from afar the great immortal of Tusita.

That the world today calls this the Flower-Scattering Song is a mistake. It should be called the Song of Tusita. There is a separate Flower-Scattering Song, but its text is long and is not recorded here.

Soon the strange sign of the sun vanished.

The king thought it admirable and gave him a set of fine tea and a rosary of one hundred and eight crystal beads.

Suddenly there was a boy of clean and fair bearing, who knelt, took up the tea and the beads, and went out through the small door on the west side of the hall.

Wolmyeong took him for a messenger from within the palace, and the king took him for the master's attendant, but when they looked into it, he was neither.

The king thought it very strange and sent a man after him. The boy went into the pagoda of the inner court and vanished, and the tea and the beads were before the image of Maitreya painted on the south wall.

From this one knows that Wolmyeong's utmost virtue and utmost sincerity could reach clearly to the utmost sage.

So it was, and in court and country there was no one who did not hear and know of it.

The king honored him all the more and gave him a further gift of one hundred bolts of silk to show his great sincerity.

Once, too, he held a rite for his dead sister and composed a native song to make the offering.

Suddenly a startling whirlwind rose and blew the paper money up into the air, carrying it westward until it vanished.

The song is this:

⟪Hyangga⟫

生死路隠 此矣有阿米次肹伊遣 吾隐去内如辝叱都 毛如云遣去内尼叱古 於內秋察早隠風未 此矣彼矣浮良落尸葉如 一等隠枝良出古 去奴隠處毛冬乎丁 阿也 彌陁刹良逢乎吾 道修良待是古如

Wolmyeong always lived at Sacheonwangsa and played the flute well.

Once on a moonlit night he passed along the great road before the gate playing his flute, and the chariot of the moon halted its wheels for him.

For this reason the road was named Wolmyeongni. The master too became famous by this.

The master was a disciple of the great master Neungjun.

The people of Silla have long honored native songs. They are perhaps something like the hymns of the Book of Songs.

So those that could now and then move heaven and earth and the spirits were not one or two.

In praise it is said:

The wind carried the flying paper money to aid the departed sister; the flute stirred the bright moon and made Chang'e stay. Do not say Tusita is far, joined to the sky. The flowers of ten thousand virtues welcome a single song.