Gim Hyeon Moves a Tiger金現感虎

Gim Hyeon moves a tiger.

It was the custom of Silla that every year, from the eighth to the fifteenth day of the second month, the men and women of the capital vied to circle the halls and pagoda of Heungnyunsa in a gathering to pray for blessings.

In the reign of King Wonseong there was a young gentleman named Gim Hyeon (金現), who circled alone deep into the night without stopping.

There was a maiden who followed him around, chanting the Buddha's name, and their hearts met and their eyes followed each other.

When the circling was done he led her into a hidden place and they became lovers.

When the maiden was about to go home, Gim Hyeon followed her. The maiden refused and tried to stop him, but he followed her anyway.

They came to the foot of the western mountain and went into a thatched hut, where an old woman asked the maiden, "Who is this who came with you?"

The maiden told her what had happened, and the old woman said, "Though it is a good thing, it would have been better if it had not happened. But it is already done, and cannot be undone. Hide him in a secret place. I fear your brothers' savagery."

She took the young man and hid him deep inside.

A little later three tigers came roaring and said in human speech, "There is a smell of raw flesh in the house. What luck for a meal!"

The old woman and the maiden scolded them. "Are your noses wrong? What mad talk is this?"

Then a voice from heaven called, "You creatures delight in harming living things far too much. One of you must be put to death to punish the evil."

The three beasts heard it and all looked troubled.

The maiden said, "If my three brothers will flee far away and repent, I will take the punishment in your place."

They all rejoiced, lowered their heads, let their tails hang, and ran off.

The maiden came in and said to the young man:

"At first I was only ashamed that you should come to my lowly family, so I tried to stop you. Now there is nothing left to hide, so I dare to open my heart.

Though I, a lowly girl, am not of your kind, I have served you for one evening's joy, and that bond is as weighty as the love of husband and wife.

Heaven already hates my three brothers' evil, and I mean to bear the disaster of the whole house myself.

Rather than die at the hands of some stranger, how much better to fall beneath your blade and repay your kindness.

Tomorrow I will go into the market and do great harm. Then the people of the country will be unable to deal with me, and the great king will surely offer high rank to gather men to catch me.

Do not be afraid. Follow me to the woods north of the city. I will wait for you there."

Gim Hyeon said, "For a man to be joined with a man is the proper way, and to be joined with another kind is no ordinary thing.

That we could be together so quietly was truly Heaven's good fortune. How could I bear to sell my mate's death and gain the rank and stipend of a lifetime by such luck?"

The maiden said, "Do not speak so.

That my life is short now is Heaven's will, and it is also my wish, and your good fortune, and my family's blessing, and the people's joy.

If one death brings five benefits, how could I go against it?

Only build a temple for me and expound the true teaching there to help me toward a good reward. Then your kindness could be no greater."

At last they wept together and parted.

The next day a fierce tiger did indeed come into the city, so savage that no one dared face it.

King Wonseong heard of it and issued an order. "Whoever subdues the tiger will be raised two grades in rank."

Gim Hyeon went to the palace and reported, "Your humble servant can do it."

So the king first granted him the rank to encourage him.

Gim Hyeon took a short weapon and went into the woods. The tiger changed into the maiden, smiled warmly, and said:

"Do not treat lightly the love we shared last night.

Those wounded by my claws today will all be healed if they smear on the soy paste of Heungnyunsa and listen to the sound of that temple's conch."

Then she took the sword Gim Hyeon wore, stabbed her own neck, and fell, and it was a tiger.

Gim Hyeon came out of the woods and gave it out, "This tiger today was easily caught."

He hid the reason and let nothing leak out, and only treated the wounded as she had told him, and their wounds all healed. The world still uses that remedy today.

After Gim Hyeon rose to office he built a temple by the Seocheon and named it Howonsa (虎願寺). He always had the Brahma Net Sutra expounded there to guide the tiger on her way in the world beyond, and also to repay the kindness of one who gave her body to make him what he became.

Near his death, Gim Hyeon was deeply moved by the strangeness of what had passed and wrote it down as a record, and so the world first came to hear and know of it. For this reason the woods were named Nonhorim (論虎林), and they are called that to this day.

In the ninth year of Zhenyuan, Shentu Cheng (申屠澄) was appointed from the rank of a Daoist to be lieutenant of Shifang County in Hanzhou.

About ten li east of Zhenfu County he met a snowstorm and bitter cold, and his horse could go no farther.

By the road was a thatched hut with a fire inside, very warm. Going toward it by the light of the lamp, he found an old man, an old woman, and a maiden sitting around the fire, and the daughter was fourteen or fifteen.

Though her hair was tangled and her clothes dirty, her skin was like snow and her cheeks like flowers, and her bearing was graceful and charming.

The old man and woman saw Shentu Cheng come and rose at once, saying, "You have braved the bitter snow. Come forward and warm yourself at the fire."

Shentu Cheng had sat a good while when the day grew dark, and the snowstorm did not stop.

Shentu Cheng said, "The county to the west is still far. I ask to stay the night here."

The old man and woman said, "If you truly do not think our humble hut too mean, we dare to accept."

So Shentu Cheng unsaddled his horse and laid out his bedding and curtains.

The daughter, seeing that the guest was staying, tidied her face, made herself up prettily, and came out from behind the curtain, and her calm and elegant bearing surpassed what it had been at first.

Shentu Cheng said, "The young lady's brightness and wisdom far surpass others. If by good fortune she is not yet married, I dare ask to be my own matchmaker. What do you say?"

The old man said, "We never hoped a noble guest would take her up. How could this not be fated?"

So Shentu Cheng performed the rites of a son-in-law, then set her on the horse he had ridden and went on.

When he reached his post his salary was very meager, but his wife worked hard to build up the household, and there was no one who was not pleased.

Later, when his term was up and he was about to go home, they already had a son and a daughter, who were also very bright and wise, and Shentu Cheng honored and loved her all the more.

Once he wrote a poem for his wife:

In one term of office I am ashamed before Mei Fu (梅福); in three years I am ashamed before Meng Guang (孟光). To what can I compare this love? On the river there are mandarin ducks.

His wife recited it all day and seemed to answer it silently, but never spoke a word aloud.

When Shentu Cheng left office and the whole family went back to his home, his wife suddenly grew sad and said:

"To the poem you gave me, there is now an answer."

Then she recited:

Though the love of lute and zither is heavy, the wish for the mountain woods is deep of itself. I always feared the season would change, and now I betray a heart meant for a hundred years.

At last they went together to look for her home, and there was no one there anymore.

The wife longed for them so much that she wept all day.

Suddenly she saw a tiger skin in a corner by the wall, and laughed aloud, saying, "I did not know this thing was still here."

Then she took it and threw it over herself, and at once she changed into a tiger, roared, clawed, burst through the door, and was gone.

Shentu Cheng fled in terror, then took his two children and searched for her along that road, looking toward the mountain woods and weeping aloud for days, but in the end he never learned where she had gone.

Alas. Shentu Cheng and Gim Hyeon both met a creature of another kind, and in that it became a man's wife the two are the same.

But Shentu Cheng's wife gave a poem mocking a man and then roared, clawed, and fled, which is different from Gim Hyeon's tiger.

Gim Hyeon's tiger harmed people only because she could not help it, and she carefully gave a good remedy to save them.

If a beast can act with such kindness, what is one to say of a man today who is less than a beast?

Looking closely at the affair from beginning to end, she moved a man while circling the temple, she offered herself in place of her brothers when heaven called out to punish evil, she passed on a wondrous remedy to save people, and she had a temple built where the Buddha's precepts were expounded.

It was not merely that the beast's nature was kind.

The great sage has many ways of responding to living things, and this was only a response to the sincerity Gim Hyeon showed in circling the temple, to repay him with benefit from the world beyond.

Was it not fitting that he received blessing and help at that time?

In praise it is said:

In the mountain house she could not endure her three brothers' evil; how could her orchid lips bear the fragrance of that one promise? With duty weighing on so many threads, she made light of ten thousand deaths, gave her body beneath the woods, and fell in haste like a flower.