The Sixteen-Foot Image of Hwangnyongsa皇龍寺丈六

In the fourteenth year of the reign of King Jinheung, the twenty-fourth ruler of Silla, the gyeyu year, in the second month, a palace was to be built south of the dragon palace.

A yellow dragon appeared on that ground, so the plan was changed and it was made a temple, named Hwangnyongsa (黃龍寺).

In the gichuk year the walls and buildings were raised around it, and only in the seventeenth year was it finished.

Not long after, a great ship came from the southern sea and anchored at Sapo (絲浦) in Hagok-hyeon.〔This is Gokpo in Ulju today.〕

On inspection there was a document, which said this:

"King Asoka (阿育王) of the Western Regions gathered fifty-seven thousand geun of yellow iron and thirty thousand pun of gold〔another account says four hundred and seven thousand geun of iron and a thousand nyang of gold, but this is probably wrong; some say thirty-seven thousand geun〕 and tried to cast an image of the Shakyamuni triad, but could not complete it. He loaded it on a ship and set it on the sea, praying, 'May it reach a land with the right affinity and become a sixteen-foot image.'"

Model images of one buddha and two bodhisattvas were also loaded on board.

The district clerk reported the facts in full. A command was given to choose high, bright ground east of that district's fortress, build Dongchuksa (東竺寺), and enshrine the triad there.

The gold and iron were sent to the capital, and in the sixth year of Dajian (大建), the gabo year, in the third month,〔the record kept at the temple says the seventeenth day of the tenth month of the gyesa year〕 the sixteen-foot image (丈六尊像) was cast, and it was completed in a single pouring.

It was enshrined at Hwangnyongsa. The next year the image wept tears that ran down to its heels and soaked the ground a full cheok deep. This was an omen of the great king's death. Some say the image was completed in the reign of King Jinpyeong, but that is wrong.

Another book says this:

King Asoka lived in the country of Daehyanghwa (大香華國) in the Western Regions within a hundred years after the Buddha was born. He grieved that he could not make offerings to the true body, so he collected some quantity of gold and iron and cast it three times, but could not complete it.

At that time only the king's crown prince took no part in this work. The king rebuked him and asked why, and the crown prince replied, "It cannot be done by one's own strength. I knew from the start it would not succeed."

The king thought this right, loaded it on a ship, and set it on the sea. Among the sixteen great countries, five hundred middle countries, ten thousand small countries, and eighty thousand villages of Jambudvipa there was nowhere it did not go around, but wherever it was cast it could not be completed.

Last of all it reached the country of Silla, and King Jinheung cast it at Muningnim (文仍林), and the image was completed with every mark of excellence in place. Asoka (阿育), translated, means 'without sorrow' (無憂).

Now, since the fires of war, the great image and the two bodhisattvas have all melted away, and only the small Shakyamuni image remains.

Later, when the daedeok Jajang (慈藏) went west to study and reached Wutaishan, the bodhisattva Manjusri appeared in bodily form, gave him a secret teaching, and charged him with these words:

"Hwangnyongsa in your country is the place where Shakyamuni and Kasyapa Buddha preached, and the stone where they sat in peace still remains. That is why what King Asoka (無憂王) of India gathered, some quantity of yellow iron, and set on the sea, reached your country only after more than one thousand three hundred years, and was completed and enshrined in that temple. In general, a mighty affinity made it so."〔This agrees exactly with what is recorded in another account.〕

After the image was completed, the triad of Dongchuksa was also moved and enshrined in this temple.

The temple record says, "In the fifth year of King Jinpyeong, the gapjin year, the golden hall was completed. In the reign of Queen Seondeok the temple's first abbot was the jingol Master Hwanhui (歡喜師), the second abbot was the guktong Jajang, next the guktong Hyehun (惠訓), and next the Vinaya master Sang (廂律師)."

In praise it is said:

What place in the dusty world is not the true home? Yet the affinity of incense and fire is greatest in this land. It was not that Asoka found it hard to set his hand to it, He meant to come to Wolseong and seek the old traces.