On that enchanting May evening, when odors of paradise, the fragrant breath of a million flowering shrubs and trailers, of bursting buds, and unfolding ferns, rose into the cool dewy air, and the silence could be felt, I was not inclined to enter a protest against Korean exaggeration on the ground that the number of peaks is probably nearer 1,200 than 12,000. Their yellow granite pinnacles, weathered into silver gray, rose up cold, stern, and steely blue from the glorious forests which drape their lower heights—winter above and summer below—then purpled into red as the sun sank, and gleamed above the twilight, till each glowing summit died out as lamps which are extinguished one by one, and the whole took on the ashy hue of death.
The situation of P’yo-un Sa is romantic, on the right bank of the torrent, and is approached by a bridge, and by passing under several roofed gateways. The monastery had been newly rebuilt, and is one mass of fretwork, carving, gilding, and color, the whole decoration being the work of the monks.
The front of the “Temple of the Believing Mind” is a magnificent piece of bold wood-carving, the motif being the peony. Every part of the building which is not stone or tile is carved, and decorated in blue, red, white, green, and gold. It may be barbaric, but it is barbaric splendor. There too is a “Temple of Judgment,” with hideous representations of the Buddhist hells, one scene being the opening of the books in which the deeds of men’s mortal lives are written.
The fifty monks of P’yo-un Sa were very friendly, and not impecunious. One gave up to me his oven-like cell, but repaid himself for the sacrifice by indulging in ceaseless staring. The wind bells of the establishment and the big bell have a melody in their tones such as I have rarely heard, and when at 4 A.M. bells of all sizes and tones announced that “prayer is better than sleep,” there was nothing about the sounds to jar on the pure freshness of morning. The monks are well dressed and jolly, and have a well-to-do air which clashes with any pretensions to asceticism. The rule of these monasteries is a strict vegetarianism which allows neither milk nor eggs, and in the whole region there are neither fowls nor domestic animals. Not to wound the prejudices of my hosts, I lived on tea, rice, honey water, edible pine nuts, and a most satisfying combination of pine nuts and honey. After a light breakfast on these delicacies, the sub-abbot, took me to see his grandmother, a very bright pleasing woman of eighty, who came from Seoul thirteen years ago and built a house within the monastery grounds, in order to die in its quiet blessedness. There I had to eat a second ethereal meal, and the hospitable hostess forced on me a pot of exquisite honey and a bag of pine nuts. These, the product of the Pinus pinea, which grows profusely throughout the range, furnish an important and nutritious article of monkish diet, and are exported in quantities as a luxury. They are rich and very oily, and turn rancid soon after being shelled. The honey is also locally produced. The beehives, which usually stand two together in cavities in the rocks, are hollow logs with clay covers mounted on blocks of wood or stone. Leaving this friendly hostess and the seven nuns of the nunnery behind, the sub-abbot showed me the direction in which to climb, for road there is none, and at parting presented me with a fan.
A visit to the Keum-Kang San elevates a Korean into the distinguished position of a traveller, and many a young resident of Seoul gains this fashionable reputation. It is not as containing shrines of pilgrimage, for most Koreans despise Buddhism and its shaven mendicant priests, that these mountains are famous in Korea, but for their picturesque beauties, much celebrated in Korean poetry. The broad backbone of the peninsula which has trended near to the east coast from Puk-chöng southwards has degenerated into tameness, when suddenly Keum-Kang San, or the Diamond Mountain, with its elongated mass of serrated, jagged, and inaccessible peaks, and magnificent primæval forest, occupying an area of about 32 miles in length by 22 in breadth, starts off from it near the 39th parallel of latitude in the province of Kang-wön. Buddhism, which, as in Japan, possesses itself of the fairest spots in Nature, fixed itself in this romantic seclusion as early as the sixth century A.D., and the venerable relics of the time when for 1,000 years it was the official as well as the popular cult of the country are chiefly to be found in the recesses of this mountain region, where the same faith, though now discredited, disestablished, and despised, still attracts a certain number of votaries, and a far larger number of visitors and so-called pilgrims, who resort to the shrines to indulge in ku-kyöng, a Korean term which covers pleasure-seeking, sightseeing, the indulgence of curiosity, and much else.
THE DIAMOND MOUNTAINS.
So far as I have been able to learn, there are only two routes by which the Keum-Kang San can be penetrated, the one which, after following the bed of a singularly rough torrent, crosses the watershed at An-mun-chai, and on or near which the principal monasteries and shrines are situated, and the Ki-cho, a lower and less interesting pass. Both routes start from Chang-an Sa. The forty-two shrines are the headquarters of about 400 monks and about 50 nuns, who add to their religious exercises the weaving of cotton and hempen cloth. The lay servitors possibly number 1,000. The four great monasteries, two on the eastern and two on the western slope, absorb more than 300 of the whole number. All except the high monastic officials beg through the country, alms-bowl in hand, the only distinctive features of their dress being a very peculiar hat and the rosary. They chant the litanies of Buddha from house to house, and there are few who deny them food and lodging and a few cash or a little rice.
The monasteries are presided over by what we should call “abbots,” superiors of the first or second class according to the importance of the establishment. These Chong-söp and Sön-tong are nominally elected annually, but actually continue in office for years, unless their conduct gives rise to dissatisfaction. Beyond the confirmation of the election of the Chong-söp of those monasteries which possess a “Red Arrow Gate” by the Board of Rites at Seoul, the disestablished Church appears to be quite free from State interference. In the case of restoring and rebuilding shrines, large sums are collected in Seoul and the southern provinces, though faith in Buddhism as a creed rarely exists.
On making inquiries through Mr. Miller as to the way in which the number of monks is kept up, I learned that the majority are either orphans or children whose parents have given them to the monasteries at a very early age owing to poverty. These are more or less educated and trained by the monks. It must be supposed that among the number there are a few who escape from the weariness and friction of secular life into a region in which seclusion and devotion are possible. Of this type was the pale and interesting young priest who gave up his room to me at Chang-an Sa, and two who accompanied us to Yu-chöm Sa, one of whom chanted Na Mu Ami Tabu nearly the whole day as he journeyed, telling a bead on his rosary for each ten repetitions. Mr. Miller asked him what the words meant. “Just letters,” he replied; “they have no meaning, but if you say them many times you will get to heaven better.” Then he gave Mr. Miller the rosary, and taught him the mystic syllables, saying, “Now, you keep the beads, say the words, and you will go to heaven.” Among the younger priests several seemed in earnest. Others make the monasteries (as is largely the case with the celebrated shrines of Kwan-yin on the Chinese island of Pu-tu) a refuge from justice or creditors, some remain desiring peaceful indolence, and not a few are vowed and tonsured who came simply to view the scenery of the Keum-Kang San and were too much enchanted to leave it.