(Essay 3) Magoist Cetaceanism and the Myth of the Pacifying Flute (Manpasikjeok) by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Reversing the Reversed of the Buddhist Textual Erasure (Part 2)

Sillan Magoists saw that whales governed the whole world by their sonic capacities, which conditioned the aquatic environment of the Earth. Note that the expression of “the whole world” refers to no romantic abstract. Led by whales, Sillan rulers saw themselves as a governing delegate of the Whole World, which is the Reign of Mago, the Creatrix. They were consciously going against an ethnocentric or imperialist perspective. A supra-nationalist perspective constituted the very vision of Sillan Magoist Cetanceanism. Precisely, Sillan rulers acted upon no other goal than restoring the original meaning of the State of Old Magoist Koreans, known as the Confederacy of Nine Hans (Danguk) or the Confederacy of Three Hans (Budo Joseon), who represented the One People of the Mago Decent. Silla was no patriarchal or ethnocentric state. She was the light of ancient Magoist Cetaceanism for the whole world in the post-Budo period.

Note the brief mytho-history of Magoism in six periods:[1]

The Mythic Period: The Beiginning of Mago Stronghold, the Primoridal Paradise, and Mu (Shaman) Elders

The Golden Period: Pre-Chinese (read pre-patriarchal) Old Magoist confederacies (Hanguk and Danguk)

The Budo Period: Budo Joseon, the proto-Chinese confederacy of Three Hans

The Post-Budo Period: Ancient Korean States (Buyeo, Silla, Goguryeo, Baekje, Gaya, Balhae) and Goryeo and Early Joseon

The Dark Period: After 1592 Japanese Invasion in Joseon and modern Koreas

The Revival Period: After 1980s when the Budoji was reappeared in public

The story delineates the event that the protagonist, King Sinmun, is initiated to Magoism Cetaceanism, as he succeeds the throne of his deceased father, King Munmu, an ardent devotee of Magoist Cetaceanism, in leading the state, Silla (57 BCE-935 BCE). The fact that the story of the pacifying flute involves the three generations of Sillan rulers, King Munmu, King Sinmun, and King Hyoso (son of King Sinmun), indicates a state-sponsored revival of Magoist Cetaceanism. And that they mark the first three rulers of United Silla (668-935 CE) is no coincidence. Shouldered with the task of opening and laying the foundation for the new era, United Silla, these Sillan rulers aimed at the flowering of Magoist Cetaceanism. Sillans brought to fruition the collective aspiration of ancient Koreans shared with their sisterly states of Gaya, Baekje, Goguryeo, and beyond in the Post-Budo Period. They established a magocratic confederacy of nine states once again under the banner of Magoist Cetaceanism. Here the nine states refer to the nine neighboring peoples of Silla. Broadly, “the nine states” means the peoples of the whole world. In the context of Magoism, the number nine refers to the perfected, all entities of the kind. And the governance of these Sillan rulers was in the continuum of their predecessors and successors. The very purpose of Sillan foundation and early Sillan politics aimed to actualize the legacy of the Magoist Mandate, the self-defining ethos of Koreans. Early Sillans called themselves the People of Little Budo after Budo Joseon (2333 BCE-232 BCE), the third and last three-state confederacy of Old Magoist Korea, better known as Old Joseon. The political achievement of United Silla in seventh century as a whole meant a flowering of Old Korean Magoist Cetaceanism.

Magoist Cetaceanism demarcates ancient Koreans from the Chinese in the Post-Budo Period, that is, in the wake of Budo Joseon’s decline in 233 BCE. Amidst the complex political situation of East Asia wherein the newly established dynasties of Imperial China rose to threaten the neighboring peoples, Sillan rulers resorted to Magoist Cetaceanism not only for the self-protection of the Sillan State but also for the self-realization of a magocratic confederacy. Evidence shows that Sillan rulers espoused the domain of patriarchal religions, Buddhism in particular, from the privileged perspective of Magoist Cetaceanism. Sillan Esoteric Buddhism was a brainchild of Sillan Magoist Cetacean rulers. Born with the teaching of Magoist Cetaceanism at the core, Sillan Esoteric Buddhism, much misconstrued and misrepresented today, was no local practice. Nor did it reflect a low-level consciousness that is discriminative in nature. Seen in the cetacean code of the Sillan temple bell, early Sillan Buddhism was autochthonous and prompted the arrival of innovative Buddhist schools of East Asia and beyond. The Chinese admiration of Sillan Buddhism in the seventh century is well addressed in the account of Mangulsan (Mountain of Ten Thousands Buddhas), a situational religious art engineered by King Gyeongdeok the Great of Silla, to be discussed in a later section. In the course of time, Sillan rulers migrated from the office of Mu (Shamans or Officiated Magoists) but held onto the role of Seon (Lay Magoists). This Sillan legacy, although unadmitted publicly, ran deep in the royal houses of Korean states throughout the forthcoming history.

In traditional East Asia, the narwhal is not utterly unknown. In fact, the following anecdote of Gim Gyogak, a mid-seventh century Sillan royalty and a Buddhist monk, insinuates that Sillan Magoist Cetaceanism was spread to China under the patronage of Buddhism. Put differently, Sillan Buddhism took the form of a syncretic religion amalgamated with Magoist Cetacenism. While Silan rulers actively pursued the policies that support Magoist Cetaceanism, some Buddhist monks were known for their esoteric practices. To be mentioned later, Monk Myeongrang was widely noted for his esoteric practices related with the Ruler of Dragons. Gim Gyogak was another one. Venerated as a reincarnated Bodhisattva Jijang (地藏 Ksitigarbha), Gim Gyogak is told to have crossed the West Sea of the Korean Peninsula to Tang China (618-907) by riding the back of a mythical animal, Jicheongsu or (地聽獸 the terrestrial animal who hears or an acoustic animal of the Earth). White in color, Jicheongsu is told to have had one horn. In iconography, Jicheongsu is depicted as a single-horned dragon-like beast (see the image). The one-horned leviathan who carried Gim Gyogak over to mainland China is evocative of a narwhal with a tusk. Its name, Jicheongsu, which literally means “The terrestrial animal who hears” or “an acoustic animal of the Earth” is a euphemistic utterance to a whale whose underwater music influences the aquatic environment of the Earth. In short, Jicheongsu refers to a whale. Also Gim Gyogak is contemporaneous with King Munmu the Great (r. 661-681), an ardent Magoist Cetacean devotee, which makes it possible to postulate that the cetacean story of the pacifying flute was known to the public.

Taking the name, Jijang, which means “Earth Treasure,” “Earth’s Matrix” or “Earth Womb” in light of Jicheongsu, the whale, it is plausible to establish that the character “ji (地 earth)” refers to the cetacean divine of the Earth. This leads to a crucial insight that the notion of Ji, the Earth, indicates the realm of whales. Put differently, the Earth is governed by whales. In this light, the title given to cetaceans, Whale Ruler the Great, makes sense. The traditional Korean thought of the Cheon-Ji-In triad (the Heavenly, the Earthly and the Human) corresponds to the Divine (Nine Magos) as the Heaven, Cetaceans as the Earth, and Humans as the Human. This contrasts with the conventional view of the Earthly as female and the Heavenly as male.

In the myth of the pacifying flute that we are given, the whale is visible but disenfranchised of its name, so to speak. Precisely, the text commits a literary killing of cetaceans. Without calling whales by their name, the text makes for an enigmatic story of Buddhism. The story poses a cognitive dissonance in the reader’s mind puzzled with questions like: How can an island move in the sea? Why is it approaching Gameunsa? Why is a bamboo tree growing in the floating island? Not addressing whales is disastrous to the semantic of the account. The whale is no ordinary topic in any manner. Contrarily, whales are central to the story. What the text removed is not just the cetacean entitlement of a name. It does away with Magoist Cetaceanism. In fact, Magoist Ceteaceanism itself is the cause of a cognitive dissonance in the patriarchal mind. Both the Creatrix and whales are the forbidden words for they are antithetical to the patriarchal premise. Like the word “Mago Samsin (the Mago Triad),” “whales” is a forbidden word in official (read patriarchal) mytho-historiographies. The fact that both “Mago Samsin” and “whales” are eliminated from the official domain is no haphazard occurrence. The very bond between women and animals inscribed in the cetacean totemism is a threat to the patriarchal establishment. Both women and whales, epistemologically disenfranchised, are foreclosed from entering the consciousness. Put differently, an epistemological disenfranchisement of Magoist Cetaceanism counter-testifies to the patriarchal crime, the killing of the matriarchal naming power.

(To be continued)

(Meet Mago Contributor) Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

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[1] See Hwang, “Mago, the Creatrix from East Asia, and the Mytho-History of Magoism,” 28-9.