Korean shaman ceremony, complete with drum, birds on poles (tori-i), and a ‘doutoku’ bell hung from a tree branch. Japan’s earliest rituals might have been very similar.
Green Shinto has long been fascinated by the shared religion of Korea and Japan. A few years ago, while investigating the rock worship that stretches along the Inland Sea via Kyushu and Tsujima into the Korean peninsula, I was privileged to meet an enthusiastic investigator of Korea’s mountain spirit – Sanshin. It is therefore with great pleasure that we are able to announce an interesting new publication by David that might well reveal more of the shared cultural history that these close neighbours have in common.
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FIRST BOOK IN ENGLISH ON KOREA’S GREATEST CULTURE-HERO
First Book in English on Korea’s Greatest Culture-Hero
Author David Mason on one of the dozens of tours he has led over the years
SEOUL, KOREA, April 18— Long-time international scholar of Korea’s traditional culture and Green Shinto friend, David Mason, has published his tenth book, Solitary Sage: The Profound Life, Wisdom and Legacy of Korea’s “Go-un” Choi Chi-won. This is a complete biography and legacy-evaluation of Choi Chi-won (857-?), one of Korea’s most interesting and iconic historical figures. It is academic quality yet also readable for the public, and includes over a hundred great photos.
“Go-un” or Lonely Cloud, known by Koreans for a millennium simply as the Great Sage, is considered a primary ancestral-hero of traditional Korean Daoist, Buddhist and Confucian culture, of Oriental literature, education and diplomacy. Following a remarkably successful career as a brilliant Confucian government official in Tang China and then back in his native Shilla Kingdom, he became a wandering historian of Korean Buddhism and then was one of few Koreans who achieved the highest level of Daoist sage-hood, achieving “Spirit-Immortal” status rather than dying. He is claimed as a key progenitor of Korea’s Daoism, Confucianism and the 2-million-strong Gyeongju Choi Clan (now the 4th-largest Korean family-name, with hundreds of famous descendants; this book describes the dozen most important ones before 1900).
There are almost a hundred sites all around South Korea that claim association with him – that he was present there and accomplished some spiritual feat, or presenting veneration of his lofty reputation; many are now utilized as cultural tourist sites. This book presents a chart of them all, and descriptions, discussions and photos of most of them. The ancient background of his august clan, and Korean Confucianism and Daoism, are fully included to provide rich context.
Choi Chi-won has a tremendous legacy-significance to several contemporary issues of Korea, including its international “brand-image” & self-promotion, its diplomacy and relations with China (he was quoted by President Xi to President Park at their first summit!), government policy, tourism offerings and national identity – these are all presented in the book and can be discussed by the author in interviews.
It has long been difficult for scholars to separate the folklore myths and legends about the Solitary Sage’s life from the solid facts, and make a coherent story out of them – this volume does so in English for the first time. Every Korean knows his name, and he is in all the school textbooks on history and literature; and over a thousand books have been published about him and his legacy in Korean, and a hundred or so in Japanese & Chinese – but this is the first real one to be done in English – this factor itself is interesting to note, in recognizing that this is an important new publication in the Korean Studies field. It has been independently published.
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David Mason strikes a pose in a throne of desiccated branches
David A. Mason is a Professor of Korean Public Service at Chung-Ang University, Seoul Campus, and a longtime researcher on the religious characteristics of Korea’s mountains. He earned a Masters’ Degree in the History of Korean Religions from Yonsei University in 1997, and was appointed the Honorary Ambassador of the Baekdu-daegan mountain-ranges by the Korean government in 2011. Mason has authored and edited ten books on Korean culture and tourism, including Spirit of the Mountains about Korea’s traditions of spiritual mountain-worship (which won the national award as “book of the year on Korea” in 2000), and the English Encyclopedia of Korean Buddhism. He has published many articles in academic journals and popular magazines, leads many group-tours in Korea, and has frequently been interviewed on various media, on many topics.
His webpage is: http://www.san-shin.org/Goun-Solitary-Sage-Choi-Chiwon.html
The book is available in 4 digital and E-book versions, at: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/David_A_Mason_Korean_Daoism
Reviewers can get a free hardcover copy by mail within Korea, simply by contacting the author. Reviewers outside of Korea are requested to download http://www.lulu.com/shop/david-a-mason/solitary-sage-the-profound-life-wisdom-and-legacy-of-koreas-go-un-choi-chi-won-black-white-photos/ebook/product-22631805.html and the publisher will repay the cost, by PayPal or etc.
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