the accounts of milbon, hyet’ong and myÖngnang 295
threatening us from the sea.” The king called Myöngnang and said,
“The enemy attack is likely to occur at any moment. What should we
do?” Myöngnang said, “If we build a temporary [temple] with silk of
various colours, that will be good.” Then he constructed a temple of silk
and with grass he made images of the Divine Kings of the Five Direc-
tions. Myöngnang headed [a group of] twelve monks who were excellent
in yoga and performed [together] the secret ritual of the mudr.^132 And
then, even before the troops of Tang and Silla confronted one another,
wind and great waves arose ragingly. All the Tang vessels sank under the
water. Afterwards, [the king] reconstructed the temple and called it the
Sach’önwang-sa. Until the present, the altar has not yet disappeared.
(According to the Kuksa 133 [the temple] was rebuilt in kimyo ,
the rst year of Tiaolu .)^134In kwön 4 he is mentioned again as the patriarch of the Sinin-jong and as
the founder of a temple called Kmgang-sa 135 in Kyöngju:
Myöngnang, the founder of the Sinin [school] had newly built the
Kmgang-sa and organised a celebration of its completion.^136Although the ritual in kwön 2 is not described in detail, Korean schol-
ars are of the opinion that the subjugation performed by Myöngnang
is based on the Guanding jing , better known as the Consecration
or Abhieka-stra.^137 The Chinese translation of this text is traditionally
attributed to rmitra of the Eastern Jin (d. 343), a Kuchean master
reknown for his occult powers. It seems however probable that Huijian
(n.d., . 457), known to have adapted many early Chinese stra
translations, composed or compiled this scripture in the middle of the
(^132) Transcribed munduru. According to the translation in Grayson (2001,
p. 219): “... the secret rites of the Bodhisattva Manjusri.. .” The Japanese translation
in KYIK, p. 336:. The Japanese translator adds in a
note (ibid., p. 336 n. 45) that the meaning is unclear, and wonders whether is not
a phonetic translation of the Sanskrit root dh. Kamata (1987, p. 103) and Toganoo
(1977, p. 104 n. 5) translate it as 133 mantra.
The Samguk sagi. See Silla pon’gi, vol. 7, Munmu-wang, in the Samguk sagi (Yi P.
1996, p. 76); 134 KYIK, p. 336 n. 48.
- During the reign of Tang Emperor Gaozong. The nineteenth year of the
Silla King Munmu. 135
A former temple. See Yi 1996, p. 82 s.v. Kmgang-sa.
(^136) See Samguk yusa, vol. 4, part 5, the story titled I Hye tongjin (The Two Hyes Mingle
with the Dust). See HPC, vol. 6, p. 345c10–11.
(^137) T.1331.21. The title refers to an esoteric initiation rite for Buddhist believers,
but the books itself is a compilation of dhra stras. On this text, see Strickmann
1990, pp. 75–118.