Sinchung Hangs Up His Hat信忠掛冠

Sinchung hangs up his hat.

Before King Hyoseong came to the throne, he was playing baduk with the worthy scholar Sinchung (信忠) beneath a pine tree in the palace courtyard, and he once said:

"If one day I forget you, let that pine tree be my witness."

Sinchung rose and bowed.

Some months later the king ascended the throne and rewarded his meritorious ministers, but he forgot Sinchung and left him out of the list.

Sinchung resented it, composed a song, and pasted it on the pine tree, and the tree suddenly withered yellow.

The king thought it strange and had it examined, and they found the song and presented it.

Greatly startled, he said, "Busy with the myriad affairs, I nearly forgot the lesson of the Jiao gong (角弓)."

So he summoned him and gave him rank and stipend, and the pine tree came back to life.

The song is this:

⟪Hyangga⟫

物叱好支栢史 秋察尸不冬爾屋攴墮米 汝於多攴行齊教因隐 仰頓隐面矣攺衣賜乎隐冬矣也 月羅理影攴古理因淵之叱 行尸浪阿叱沙矣以攴如攴 皃史沙叱望阿乃 世理都之叱逸烏隐第也

The latter stanza is lost.

Because of this he enjoyed favor in two reigns.

In the twenty-second year of King Gyeongdeok,〔The king was the younger brother of King Hyoseong.〕 the year gyemyo, Sinchung made a pact with two friends, hung up his hat, and went into Namak.

He was summoned twice but did not go, and he shaved his head and became a monk.

He built Dansoksa for the king and lived there, wishing to spend his whole life in the hills and valleys praying for the great king's blessing, and the king allowed it.

The portrait he left is the one on the back wall of the golden hall.

To the south is a village called Sokhyu (俗休), now wrongly called Sohwari.

〔Looking at the Biographies of the Three Monks, there is a Sinchung Bongseongsa, which has been confused with this. But reckoning the time of King Sinmun, it is already a hundred years and more from King Gyeongdeok. Moreover, the affair of King Sinmun and Sinchung belongs to a former life, so it is clear that this is not that Sinchung. Look into it carefully.〕

Again, a separate record says this.

In the reign of King Gyeongdeok, the jikjang Yi Jun〔The Goseungjeon calls him Yi Sun.〕 made a vow early on that when he reached fifty he would leave home and build a temple.

In the seventh year of Tianbao, the year muja, when he reached fifty, he rebuilt the small temple at Joyeon into a great temple and named it Dansoksa.

He himself also shaved his head, took the dharma name Elder Gonggoeng, lived at the temple for twenty years, and died.

This differs from what the Samguksa records above, so both are kept, and the doubtful point is left open.

In praise it is said:

Fame and merit not yet done, the temples first turn to frost; though the king's favor is great, a hundred years pass in haste. Beyond the bank there is a mountain that often enters my dreams; I will go there and with incense pray for my king.