348 Part IV: East Asian Civilization
enormous Shiji in which he recovered the memory of Confucius from the obliv-
ion into which the First Emperor had tried to cast it, and chronicled the earliest
Chinese dynasties. Part legend, part history, it served as a narrative of Chinese
identity for two millenniums. Similarly in Japan, inspired by Sima Qian, the
Kojiki (712 C.E.) and the Nihon Shoki (720 C.E.) narrated a history of the Japa-
nese people and state, with a founder-emperor Jimmu who descended from
Heaven and got things organized in the islands of Japan. It will come as no sur-
prise that Korea also has texts that recount the history of the Korean people.
The oldest, Samguk sagi (History of the Three Kingdoms), was commissioned
by the king of Koryo and compiled by Kim Busik and a group of scholars and
completed in 1145. The Samguk sagi is a history of the Three Kingdoms (378
B.C.E.–918 C.E.), consciously modeled after Sima Qian’s Shiji and written in
classical Chinese script. The Samguk yusa (Memorabilia of the Three King-
doms) was written by the Buddhist monk Iryeon around 1285 C.E. Much of
this text is devoted to Buddhist legends and folktales, but it also provides an
account of Dangun, the pre-Buddhist mythological founder of Korea. In 1287
the Jewang Ungi (Songs of Emperors and Kings), a lengthy poem by Yi Seung-
hyu, also tells the story of Dangun.
So who was Dangun? What was it that the Buddhist monk Iryeon desired
to record about the origins of the Korean people? It all began, according to the
Samguk yusa and Jewang Ungi, with a heavenly figure named Hwan-in, the Lord
of Heaven, one of whose younger sons, with no hope of succeeding his father
in Heaven, desired to strike out on his own to create a new kingdom on earth.
With his father’s support, younger son Hwan-ung descends to Mount Taebaek-
san (in modern South Korea) or perhaps Mt. Baektu (in modern North Korea
on the border with China), landing on a sacred sandalwood tree. He brought
with him tokens of statecraft (three heavenly seals) and 3,000 followers. He set
to work establishing the apparatus of a state: laws, morals, agriculture, medi-
cine, science, and art.
However, he did not have a wife. Into his kingdom came a bear and a tiger,
desiring to become human beings. To change them into humans, Hwan-ung
gave each of them some mugwort and garlic and sent them into a cave for 100
days. The tiger abandoned the cave in search of better food, but the bear held
on and 20 days later was transformed into a woman. The bear-woman, lonely
with no companion, wandered onto Mt. Taebaek-san, praying for a child.
Hwan-ung took pity on her, and mated with the bear-woman. Their child was
Dangun, the first human. Dangun founded Old Choson, Korea’s first king-
dom, in 2333 B.C.E. and ruled for 1,500 years. At the end he abdicated and
became an immortal mountain spirit (sanshin) (Mingren 2016).Korean Shamanism
Korean indigenous beliefs share some common elements across the penin-
sula in the reverence for family spirits and the gods of local mountains and vil-
lages. These deeply indigenous views were joined early on by newer ideas