284 pol vanden broucke and sem vermeersch
air and turned upside down. After a time, he slowly came down and
stuck with his head into the ground. He looked like a tall stake. People
came from near by and tried to push him out, but he did not move.
The hermit went away and Inhye spent the whole night with his feet
in the air. The next day, Such’ön sent a messenger to Kim Yangdo. He
sent the hermit to release the monk and to dissolve [the spell]. Inhye
never displayed his talent again.
The eulogy [to Milbon] goes like this:
Crimson and purple mixed together are almost confounded with
vermilion.^45
It is lamentable that sh eyes^46 deceive the ignorant.
If the hermit had not snapped his ngers lightly, many caskets would
contain inferior stones.
2.2. Hyet’ong who Subdues the DragonThe family background of the monk Hyet’ong is not known. When
he was wearing white garments,^47 his house was at the western foot of
Nam-san mountain,^48 [near] the mouth of the »nch’ön
stream (nowadays a village to the east of the Namgan-sa ).^49
One day, when he was playing on the bank of the stream to the east
of his house he caught an otter and killed it. He threw its carcass into
the garden. The next morning the body had disappeared. Hyet’ong
[found] a trail of blood. He followed it up and found that the carcass
[of the otter] had returned to its hole. It was crouching, protecting her
ve young. He stared with surprise [at this scene]. After a while, the
boy was struck with admiration and felt many doubts and hesitations.
Thereupon he renounced the world and became a monk. He changed
his name to Hyet’ong. He went to Tang and visited [Shan]Wuwei
(^45) Crimson and purple are “intermediate colours” (secondary colours, Chin. jianse
). Jianse are produced by mixing “correct colours” (primary colours, Chin. zhengse
). Vermilion is considered as one of the ve zhengse (blue, yellow, vermilion red,
white, and black). See Morohashi 1966–1968, vol. 8, p. 947b s.v. köshi and vol. 6,
p. 37c s.v. shu.
(^46) Comp. “to mix up sh-eyes and pearls”, to confound things that differ
but look alike. See Mathews, 1979, p. 1149, no. 7668; Morohashi 1966–1968, vol. 12,
p. 717c s.v. 47 gyomoku konshu.
I.e., when he was still a layman.
(^48) Mountain (494 m) in the southern part of Kyöngju.
(^49) This temple is no longer extant. See Yi 1996, p. 99 s.v. Namgan-sa.