A History of Korea (43 page)

Items exported to Japan included life’s necessities such as rice and beans, cotton cloth, hemp and ramie cloth, handcrafted articles such as porcelain ware, and books. In return, the Japanese sent minerals including copper, sulfur, and tin, as well as dyestuffs, medicines, and spices. In 1411 the Japanese presented an elephant to King T’aejong, causing widespread excitement in the country.

Chos
ŏ
n also engaged in economic and cultural exchanges with the Ryukyu Islands, Siam, and Java. Ryukyu, in particular, actively sent envoys to Kory
ŏ
and Chos
ŏ
n, paying homage to these Korean kingdoms with its indigenous products in return for the Buddhist Tripitaka, temple bells, and Buddhist images. The streets in front of the Ky
ŏ
ngbok-kung palace were said to have thronged with foreign envoys, and with merchants from Japan and Southeast Asian countries. As time went on, however, Chos
ŏ
n increasingly pursued an isolationist policy, closing its door to foreigners, and such lively scenes no longer occurred.

From early times Koreans wrote their literary works in classical Chinese and accepted Chinese culture. They always wanted an indigenous alphabet, however, because of the discordance between their language and Chinese writing, as well as the difficulty in studying the latter. Thus Koreans created several primitive alphabets, but they were all inadequate to express their spoken language and still difficult to learn.

As the need for a writing system designed to express the everyday spoken language increased, King Sejong, in 1446, created han’g
ŭ
l, which was initially called the
Hunmin ch
ŏ
ng
ŭ
m,
or Correct Sounds to Instruct the People. The people readily learned and used this new system of writing, and indeed it promoted literacy among the common people.

Although han’g
ŭ
l was a simple and almost perfect system for writing the native Korean language, this masterful creation functioned only as an auxiliary
to Chinese writing. The official written language continued to be Chinese, although han’g
ŭ
l contributed to pronouncing the Chinese characters in a way that conformed to the Korean language. There had been many phrases with Chinese characters in Korean vocabularies, and so the Korean language could not be understood without them. Furthermore, as Chinese had already taken root as the common writing system, Koreans could not help using it. Han’g
ŭ
l, therefore, was not well received by the ruling yangban class of the day, as they wanted to retain their monopoly on access to learning through the use of the difficult Chinese writing system. In the Confucian state of Chos
ŏ
n, literacy was power itself.

After it was created, however, han’g
ŭ
l was put to practical use in several ways. First, a number of major works written in Chinese were translated into the Korean alphabet and could be more widely read among the general population. In the reign of kings Sejong and Sejo, several important opuses were translated into han’g
ŭ
l, including
Yongbi
ŏ
ch’
ŏ
n ka,
or Songs of Flying Dragons, which was a eulogy of the virtues of the royal ancestors; and two hymns titled
W
ŏ
rin ch’
ŏ
n’gang chi kok,
or Songs of the Moon’s Reflection on a Thousand Rivers, and
S
ŏ
kpo sangj
ŏ
l,
or Episodes from the Life of the Buddha, which together were titled
W
ŏ
rin s
ŏ
kpo.
These han’g
ŭ
l translations were known as a special genre,
ŏ
nhae,
or vulgate elucidations. In the sixteenth century Confucian texts such as the Five Classics, agricultural manuals, and military texts were also translated into the Korean alphabet. Thus han’g
ŭ
l was known as
ŏ
nmun,
or vulgate writing. Government clerks who engaged in routine administrative affairs used han’g
ŭ
l to enable common people to easily understand national policies. Ladies of the palace and wives and daughters of yangban families used han’g
ŭ
l extensively in exchanging letters and writing literary works, and even scholar-officials, with a profound knowledge of the Chinese writing system, composed poems and prose in han’g
ŭ
l.
Tongguk ch
ŏ
ngun,
or Correct Pronunciations of the Eastern Kingdom, compiled in 1447, was a text for studying how to conform pronunciation of Chinese characters to the native Korean language. Although initially rebuffed by the yangban literati, han’g
ŭ
l’s increasingly extended use ultimately made it the national script for Koreans.

In the reigns of King Sejong through King S
ŏ
ngjong, a variety of scholarly works on history, geography, and rite were compiled and produced under government aegis. These were mainly written from a Confucian perspective
and so were closely related to the realities of the Confucian Chos
ŏ
n dynasty. Past history was regarded as an exemplar for the king and government, which heightened interest in the compilation of historical works. The work to compile a history of each reign already began in 1392, immediately after the founding of the dynasty, and
T’aejo sillok,
or Annals of King T’aejo, was completed in 1413. Thereafter the process of compiling
sillok
lasted until the end of the dynasty, producing the basic record known collectively as
Chos
ŏ
n wangjo sillok,
or Annals of the Chos
ŏ
n Dynasty, a UNESCO Memory of the World.
Sillok
records were drafted by
sagwan,
or history officials, at the Ch’unch’ugwan, and, to safeguard them, copies were placed in four widely separated depositories called
sago,
or history archives, in Seoul (Ch’unch’ugwan), Ch
ŏ
nju, S
ŏ
ngju, and Ch’ungju.

When special events such as royal marriages, royal funerals, palace festivals, and royal visits occurred, the government kept detailed records of the activities, participants, and expenses of the events, with illustrations, in specially complied works called the
Ŭ
igue,
or Royal Protocols. Throughout the Chos
ŏ
n dynasty, a total of 3,895 volumes of the
Ŭ
igue
, a UNESCO Memory of the World, were compiled. Only the Chos
ŏ
n kingdom created such special works in East Asia. The Chos
ŏ
n government also compiled
Kukcho pogam,
or A Precious Mirror for Succeeding Reigns, which drew examples from
sillok
of the good governing practices of earlier monarchs for the edification of their successors. The
Kukcho pogam
first appeared in1458 and continued throughout the dynasty until 1909, immediately before the downfall of the dynasty, totaling 90 volumes when completed.

The Chos
ŏ
n kingdom rewrote the Kory
ŏ
kingdom’s official history from a Neo-Confucian perspective. In East Asia, the current dynasty traditionally established the official account of its preceding dynasty. Thus, just as Kory
ŏ
had written
Samguk sagi,
the Chos
ŏ
n dynasty compiled works on Kory
ŏ
history. After a prolonged effort that began in the reign of King T’aejo, the much revised final version of
Kory
ŏ
sa,
or History of Kory
ŏ
, was completed in 139 volumes by Ch
ŏ
ng In-ji in 1451.
⁴
It was compiled in the format of annals, chronological tables, treatises, and biographies modeled on Kim Pu-sik’s
Samguk sagi.
At almost the same time, in 1452, the 35-volume
Kory
ŏ
sa ch
ŏ
ryo,
or Essentials of Kory
ŏ
History, was written in strictly chronological form by Kim Chong-s
ŏ
. Both
Kory
ŏ
sa
and
Kory
ŏ
sa ch
ŏ
ryo
were written from a Neo-Confucian perspective. Whereas the former emphasized the role of the monarch, the latter stressed the function of bureaucrat-officials. Ch
ŏ
ng To-j
ŏ
n and Kim Chong-s
ŏ
each wrote
a history of Kory
ŏ
that made the role of bureaucrat-officials more prominent than that of the monarch; as a result, they incurred the hatred of Kings T’aejong and Sejo, respectively, and were put to death. Naturally the monarchs attempted to disseminate
Kory
ŏ
sa
rather than
Kory
ŏ
sa ch
ŏ
ryo.

After a series of revisions, Korea’s first overall history,
Tongguk t’onggam,
or A Comprehensive Mirror of the Eastern Kingdom, was completed in 1485 in 56 volumes, offering, chronologically, the entire Korean history from Tan’gun through the end of Kory
ŏ
. At the time Tan’gun was honored as the progenitor of the Korean race, and a comprehensive history naturally began with an account of the Tan’gun era.

In order to rule the local population effectively, the Chos
ŏ
n government conducted a geographical survey of the entire kingdom and compiled works on the cultural and physical geographies of the country. The first was
Sinch’an p’alto chiriji,
or Newly Compiled Geographical Descriptions of the Eight Provinces, which appeared in 1432. It was incorporated as an eight-volume treatise into
Sejong sillok,
or the Annals of King Sejong, in 1454, and thus was titled
Sejong sillok chiriji.
It included more than 60 items of information deemed necessary for the governing of the country, including each county’s administrative history, historical figures, historical remains, surnames, population, land area, topo-graphical features, control checkpoints, fortifications, native products, roads and post stations, garrisons, troop levies, and beacon communication sites. An even more detailed work, the 50-volume
Tongguk y
ŏ
ji s
ŭ
ngnam,
or Augmented Survey of the Geography of the Eastern Kingdom, compiled in 1481, treated all aspects of the country’s cultural geography mainly to reflect the interests and values of the literati class. The existing version is a revised edition, in 55 volumes, called
Sinj
ŭ
ng tongguk y
ŏ
ji s
ŭ
ngnam,
or Newly Enlarged Survey of the Geography of the Eastern Kingdom, completed in 1530. The Chos
ŏ
n dynasty also set about creating maps of the country, and an atlas titled
Tongguk chido,
or Map of the Eastern Kingdom, appeared in 1463.

Rites and ceremonies were especially important in a Confucian state, and so, in 1474, the Chos
ŏ
n dynasty compiled
Kukcho orye
ŭ
i,
or Five Rites of State, an eight-volume work prescribing the mode of conduct of the state’s major ceremonies. The five major rites included royal succession and various sacrifices, marriage and other sanctified occasions, welcoming ceremonies for foreign envoys, military reviews, and funerals. In 1432 an earlier three-volume work,
Samgang haengsil to,
or Drawings of the Conduct of the Three Bonds, had been compiled by S
ŏ
l Sun and others at Sejong’s command; this book of moral virtues for the
general populace employed drawings and accompanying texts of more than 300 Korean and Chinese loyal retainers, filial sons, and faithful women to portray models of the three bonds of loyalty, filial piety, and fidelity. It was designed to promote Confucianism’s three ethical values and five moral disciplines that were most important for the general population. As this work of ethics was compiled in Chinese, Sejong strongly believed that a Korean alphabet was needed, and so he accelerated the creation of han’gul. In short, to rule more effectively and realize a more perfect Confucian state, the Chos
ŏ
n kingdom compiled many different works on its history, geography, and ritual ceremonies.

In the fifteenth century Chos
ŏ
n attained its apogee in science and technology, as a number of inventions and publications were produced. As agricultural techniques developed, several agricultural manuals were compiled. The first work,
Nongsa chiks
ŏ
l,
or Straight Talk on Farming, compiled by Ch
ŏ
ng Ch’o, appeared in 1429 under the reign of Sejong and was replete with information collected from experienced elder peasants throughout the country. Although it referred to agricultural techniques used in northern China, because the climate and soil of Korea differed from those of northern China, the manual was designed to meet the needs of Korean agriculture. It had become the classic work on Korean farming until a later agricultural work appeared in 1655,
Nongga chips
ŏ
ng,
or Compilation for Farmers, which was compiled by Sin Sok and introduced the more advanced agricultural techniques used in southern China. Later, in the reign of King S
ŏ
ngjong, the scholar-official Kang H
ŭ
i-maeng wrote
K
ŭ
myang chamnok,
or Miscellaneous Notes on Farming in K
ŭ
mch’
ŏ
n County, where he described the cultivation methods for 81 kinds of grain based on his own experience and what was taught in his home town of K
ŭ
mch’
ŏ
n, present-day Sih
ŭ
ng, which is part of Seoul. In 1492 the contents of this work were appended to a new edition of
Nongsa chiks
ŏ
l.