Corea: The Hermit Nation

by William Elliot Griffis

How much of truth there is in this narrative of Jingu it is difficult to tell. The date given cannot be trustworthy. The truth seems at least this, that Shinra was far superior to the Japan of the early Christian centuries. Buddhism was formally established in Shinra in the year 528; and as early as the sixth century a steady stream of immigrants—traders, artists, scholars, and teachers, and later Buddhist missionaries—passed from Shinra into Japan, interrupted only by the wars which from time to time broke out. The relations between Nippon and Southern Corea will be more fully related in another chapter, but it will be well to remember that the Japanese always laid claim to the Corean peninsula, and to Shinra especially, as a tributary nation. They supported that claim not only whenever embassies from the two nations met at the court of China, but they made it a more or less active part of their national policy down to the year 1876. Many a bloody war grew out of this claim, but on the other hand many a benefit accrued to Japan, if not to Shinra.

Meanwhile, in the peninsula the leading state expanded her borders by gradual encroachments upon the little “kingdom” of Mimana to the southwest and upon Hiaksai on the north. The latter, having always considered Shinra to be inferior, and even a dependent, war broke out between the two states as soon as Shinra assumed perfect independence. Korai and Hiaksai leagued themselves against Shinra, and the game of war continued, with various shifting of the pieces on the board, until the tenth century. The three rival states mutually hostile, the Japanese usually friends to Hiaksai, the Chinese generally helpers of Shinra, the northern nations beyond the Tumen and Sungari assisting Korai, varying their operations in the field with frequent alliances and counter-plots, make but a series of dissolving-views of battle and strife, into the details of which it is not profitable to enter. Though Korai and Hiaksai felt the heaviest blows from China, Shinra was harried oftenest by the armies of her neighbors and by the Japanese. Indeed, from a tributary point of view, it seems questionable whether her alliances with China were of any benefit to her. In times of peace, however, the blessings of education and civilization flowed freely from her great patron. Though farthest east from China, it seems certain that Shinra was, in many respects, the most highly civilized of the three states. Especially was this [[47]]the case during the Tang era (618–905 A.D.), when the mutual relations between China and Shinra were closest, and arts, letters, and customs were borrowed most liberally by the pupil state. Even at the present time, in the Corean idiom, “Tang-yang” (times of the Tang and Yang dynasties) is a synonym of prosperity. The term for “Chinese,” applied to works of art, poetry, coins, fans, and even to a certain disease, is “Tang,” instead of the ordinary word for China, since this famous dynastic title represents to the Corean mind, as to the student of Kathayan history, one of the most brilliant epochs known to this longest-lived of empires. What the names of Plantagenet and Tudor represent to an Anglo-Saxon mind, the terms Tang and Sung are to a Corean.

During this period, Buddhism was being steadily propagated, until it became the prevailing cult of the nation. Reserving the story of its progress for a special chapter, we notice in this place but one of its attendant blessings. In the civilization of a nation, the possession of a vernacular alphabet must be acknowledged to be one of the most potent factors for the spread of intelligence and culture. It is believed by many linguists that the Choctaws and Coreans have the only two perfect alphabets in the world. It is agreed by natives of Chō-sen that their most profound scholar and ablest man of intellect was Chul-chong, a statesman at the court of Kion-chiu, the capital of Shinra. This famous penman, a scholar in the classics and ancient languages of India as well as China, is credited with the invention of the Nido, or Corean syllabary, one of the simplest and most perfect “alphabets” in the world. It expresses the sounds of the Corean language far better than the kata-kana of Japan expresses Japanese. Chul-chong seems to have invented the Nido syllabary by giving a phonetic value to a certain number of selected Chinese characters, which are ideographs expressing ideas but not sounds. Perhaps the Sanskrit alphabet suggested the model both for manner of use and for forms of letters. The Nido is composed almost entirely of straight lines and circles, and the letters belonging to the same class of labials, dentals, etc., have a similarity of form easily recognized. The Coreans state that the Nido was invented in the early part of the eighth century, and that it was based on the Sanskrit alphabet. It is worthy of note that, if the date given be true, the Japanese kata-kana, invented a century later, was perhaps suggested by the Corean. [[48]]

One remarkable effect of the use of phonetic writing in Corea and Japan has been to stereotype, and thus to preserve, the ancient sounds and pronunciation of words of the Chinese, which the latter have lost. These systems of writing outside of China have served, like Edison’s phonographs, in registering and reproducing the manner in which the Chinese spoke, a whole millennium ago. This fact has already opened a fertile field of research, and may yet yield rich treasures of discovery to the sciences of history and linguistics.

Certainly, however, we may gather that the Tang era was one of learning and literary progress in Corea, as in Japan—all countries in pupilage to China feeling the glow of literary splendor in which the Middle Kingdom was then basking. The young nobles were sent to obtain their education at the court and schools of Nanking, and the fair damsels of Shinra bloomed in the harem of the emperor. Imperial ambassadors frequently visited the court of this kingdom in the far east. Chinese costume and etiquette were, for a time, at least, made the rigorous rule at court. On one occasion, in 653 A.D., the envoy from Shinra to the mikado came arrayed in Chinese dress, and, neglecting the ceremonial forms of the Japanese court, attempted to observe those of China. The mikado was highly irritated at the supposed insult. The premier even advised that the Corean be put to death; but better counsels prevailed. During the eighth and ninth centuries this flourishing kingdom was well known to the Arab geographers, and it is evident that Mussulman travellers visited Shinra or resided in the cities of the peninsula for purposes of trade and commerce, as has been shown before.

Kion-chiu, the capital of Shinra, was a brilliant centre of art and science, of architecture and of literary and religious light. Imposing temples, grand monasteries, lofty pagodas, halls of scholars, magnificent gateways and towers adorned the city. In campaniles, equipped with water-clocks and with ponderous bells and gongs, which, when struck, flooded the valleys and hill-tops with a rich resonance, the sciences of astronomy and horoscopy were cultivated. As from a fountain, rich streams of knowledge flowed from the capital of Shinra, both over the peninsula and to the court of Japan. Even after the decay of Shinra’s power in the political unity of the whole peninsula, the nation looked upon Kion-chiu as a sacred city. Her noble temples, halls, and towers stood in honor and repair, enshrining the treasures of India, Persia, [[49]]and China, until the ruthless Japanese torch laid them in ashes in 1596.

The generation of Corean people during the seventh century, when the Chinese hordes desolated large portions of the peninsula and crushed out Hiaksai and Korai, saw the borders of Shinra extending from the Everlasting White Mountains to the Island of Tsushima, and occupying the entire eastern half of the peninsula. From the beginning of the eighth until the tenth century, Shinra is the supreme state, and the political power of the Eastern Kingdom is represented by her alone. Her ambition tempted, or her Chinese master commanded, her into an invasion of the kingdom of Pu-hai beyond her northern border, 733 A.D. Her armies crossed the Tumen, but met with such spirited resistance that only half of them returned. Shinra’s desire of conquest in that direction was appeased, and for two centuries the land had rest from blood.

Until Shinra fell, in 934 A.D., and united Corea rose on the ruins of the three kingdoms, the history of this state, as found in the Chinese annals, is simply a list of her kings, who, of course, received investiture from China. On the east, the Japanese, having ceased to be her pupils in civilization during times of peace, as in time of war they were her conquerors, turned their attention to Nanking, receiving directly therefrom the arts and sciences, instead of at second-hand through the Corean peninsula. They found enough to do at home in conquering all the tribes in the north and east and centralizing their system of government after the model of the Tangs in China. For these reasons the sources of information concerning the eighth and ninth centuries fail, or rather it is more exact to say that the history of Shinra is that of peace instead of war. In 869 we read of pirates from her shores descending upon the Japanese coast to plunder the tribute ships from Buzen province, and again, in 893, that a fleet of fifty junks, manned by these Corean rovers, was driven off from Tsushima by the Japanese troops, with the loss of three hundred slain. Another descent of “foreign pirates,” most probably Coreans, upon Iki Island, in 1019, is recorded, the strangers being beaten off by reinforcements from the mainland. The very existence of these marauders is, perhaps, a good indication that the power of the Shinra government was falling into decay, and that lawlessness within the kingdom was preparing the way for some mighty hand to not only seize the existing state, but to unite all Corea [[50]]into political, as well as geographical, unity. In the far north another of those great intermittent movements of population was in process, which, though destroying the kingdom of Puhai beyond the Tumen, was to repeople the desolate land of Korai, and again call a dead state to aggressive life. From the origin to the fall of Shinra there were three royal families of fifty-five kings, ruling nine hundred and ninety-three years, or seven years less than a millennium.

Despite the modern official name of the kingdom, Chō-sen, the people of Corea still call their country Gaoli, or Korai, clinging to the ancient name. In this popular usage, unless we are mistaken, there is a flavor of genuine patriotism. Chō-sen does indeed mean Morning Calm, but the impression made on Western ears, and more vividly upon the eye by means of the Chinese characters, is apt to mislead. The term is less a reflection of geographical position than of the inward emotions of those who first of all were more Chinese than Corean in spirit, and of a desire for China’s favor. The term Chō-sen savors less of dew and dawn than of policy and prosy fact. It is probable, despite the Corean’s undoubted love of nature and beautiful scenery, that Americans and Europeans have been led astray as to the real significance of the phrase “morning calm.” At the bottom, it means rather peace with China than the serenity of dewy morning. Audience of the Chinese emperor to his vassals is always given at daybreak, and to be graciously received after the long and tedious prostrations is an auspicious beginning as of a day of heaven upon earth. To the founder of Corea, Ki Tsze, the gracious favor of the Chow emperor was as “morning calm;” and so to Ni Taijo, in 1392 A.D., was the sunshine of the Ming emperor’s favor. In both instances the name Chō-sen given to their realm had, in reality, immediate reference to the dayspring of China’s favor, and “the calm of dawn” to the smile of the emperor.

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