Wonhyo, Unbound元曉不羈

Wonhyo, unbound.

The holy master Wonhyo (元曉) had the secular surname Seol. His grandfather was Lord Ingpi, also called Lord Jeokdae. There is now a shrine to Lord Ingpi beside Jeokdae Pond. His father was Damnae (談㮈), of the rank of naemal.

He was first born under a sala tree in Chestnut Valley, north of Bulji village, south of Amnyang-gun.〔Present Jangsan-gun.〕 The village is named Bulji (佛地), also written Balji village.〔The villagers call it Buldeungeul village.〕

Of the sala tree, popular tradition says this.

The master's house was originally southwest of this valley. His mother was with child and her months were full, and as she happened to pass under a chestnut tree in this valley she suddenly went into labor, and in her haste could not get home.

She hung her husband's clothes on the tree and lay down inside them, and because of this the tree was called the sala tree (裟羅樹).

The fruit of that tree is also unlike ordinary ones, and to this day it is called the sala chestnut.

The old record says this. Long ago the one in charge of the temple gave a temple slave two chestnuts for his evening meal. The slave complained to the officials, and the official, thinking it strange, took the chestnuts and examined them.

One chestnut filled a whole bowl. So he ruled instead that only one should be given.

Therefore it was named Chestnut Valley.

After the master went forth as a monk, he gave up his house to be a temple and named it Chogaesa (初開寺), and he placed a temple beside the tree and called it Sarasa (裟羅寺).

The master's record of conduct says he was a man of the capital and followed his grandfather, while the Tang Biographies of Monks says he was originally a man of Hasangju (下湘州).

On examination, around the second year of Linde King Munmu divided the lands of Sangju and Haju and set up Samnyangju, so Haju is present Changnyeong-gun, and Amnyang-gun was originally a county belonging to Haju. Sangju is present Sangju, also written Sangju (湘州).

Bulji village now belongs to Jain-hyeon, which was divided off from Amnyang.

When the master was born his childhood name was Seodang (誓幢), and his next name was Sindang (新幢).〔'Dang' is called 'hair' in common speech.〕

At first his mother dreamed that a shooting star entered her bosom, and she conceived. When she was about to give birth, five-colored clouds covered the ground. This was the thirty-ninth year of King Jinpyeong, the thirteenth year of Daye, the jeongchuk year.

From birth he was outstanding, and in learning he followed no teacher.

The beginning and end of his travels and the great traces of his wide teaching are fully recorded in the Tang biography and his record of conduct, so they cannot all be set down. Only one or two different matters recorded in the local biography are given.

One day the master, as if mad, sang in the streets:

"Who will lend me an axe without a handle? I will hew a pillar to hold up the sky."

No one understood, but at that time Taejong heard it and said:

"This master must mean that he wishes to get a noble wife and beget a worthy son. If the country has a great worthy, there is no greater benefit than this."

At that time there was a widowed princess at Yoseok Palace.〔This is the present Hagwon.〕

He ordered the palace officials to find Wonhyo and bring him in. The official received the command and went to look for him, and Wonhyo had already come down from Namsan and was crossing Muncheon Bridge〔this is Sacheon, commonly called Yeoncheon or Muncheon, and the bridge is named Yugyo〕 when they met.

He fell into the water on purpose and soaked his clothes and trousers.

The official brought the master to the palace and had him take off his clothes to dry, and so he stayed the night.

The princess indeed conceived and gave birth to Seol Chong (薛聰).

Seol Chong was wise and quick from birth and widely versed in the classics and histories; he is one of the ten worthies of Silla.

In the native tongue he made known the customs and the names of things of both China and this land, and explained the Six Classics and literature, so that to this day those in Haedong who study the classics receive his teaching without a break.

Wonhyo, having already lost his precepts and fathered Seol Chong, changed into secular dress and called himself the layman Soseong (小姓居士).

By chance he got hold of a large gourd that an entertainer danced and played with, and its shape was strange. Following its shape he made an implement, and taking the line of the Avatamsaka Sutra, 'All unhindered people leave birth and death by a single road,' he named it Muae (無㝵), the Unhindered, and composed a song that spread through the world.

He once carried this through a thousand villages and ten thousand hamlets, singing and dancing, teaching and chanting, and then returned.

And so even the houses with mulberry-wood door pivots and broken-jar windows, and people who lived like monkeys, all came to know the name of the Buddha and all together said 'namu' (南無). How great was Wonhyo's teaching.

The village where he was born is named Bulji (佛地) and the temple is named Chogae (初開), and his calling himself Wonhyo probably meant no more than 'first making the Buddha's sun shine'.

Wonhyo too is in the native tongue; the people of that time all called him 'first dawn' in their own speech.

He once stayed at Bunhwangsa compiling a commentary on the Avatamsaka Sutra, and when he reached the Chapter on the Ten Dedications in the fourth volume, he finally laid down his brush.

Also, because of a lawsuit he once divided his body among a hundred pine trees, so all say his rank had reached the first ground (初地).

Also, led by the sea dragon, he received a royal edict on the road and composed a commentary on the Vajrasamadhi Sutra, and he set his brush and inkstone on the two horns of an ox, so it was called the Horn Vehicle (角乘), which also expressed the subtle meaning of the two awakenings, original and initial.

The Dharma master Daean arranged it and pasted the pages, and he too was one who knew the tune and sang in harmony.

After he entered nirvana, Seol Chong ground his remaining bones and molded a true likeness, which he enshrined at Bunhwangsa to show his reverence and longing to the end of time.

When Seol Chong bowed beside it, the image suddenly turned to look, and to this day it is still turned to look.

Beside Hyeolsa, where Wonhyo once lived, the site of Seol Chong's house is said to remain.

In praise it is said:

The Horn Vehicle first opened the scroll of samadhi, The dancing gourd hung at last in the wind of every street. Under the bright moon at Yoseok Palace the spring sleep passed, Behind the shut gate of Bunhwangsa only the turned shadow remains in vain.