[Editor’s Note: This essay to be posted as sequels is from the second volume of the S/HE journal. See S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (Volume 2 Number 1, 2023). Page numbers and footnote numbers differ in this page.]
Male Rulers and the Decline of the Royal Matrilineage
Sillan male rulers toward the end of the Middle Period increasingly faced a conundrum. Patriarchal international politics as well as domestic rebellions set them to gravitate to a centralized court power. As male rulers sought court power, they undermined the very foundation of matriversal Silla. They were aware that the Sillan matriarchal republic would be doomed without the royal matrilineage. Nonetheless, male-led rebellions slowly but surely arrived from within the court. Relying on the diplomatic relation with the imperialist Tang China escalated the process of the state disintegration.[1]
The historical anecdote of the 35th ruler Gyeongdeok the Great, the son of Seongdeok the Great, indicates that he was caught in such conundrum. He had no male heir born to himself. And he expressed his wishes to beget a male baby against the law of heaven and at the cost of the state. The Samguk Yusa records the wish Gyeongdeok as follows:
Although the jade trunk [penis] of the king [Gyeongdeok the Great] was eight chi [about 24 cm] long, he had no offspring. Because of that, his first queen [Mother Sammo] was deposed and appointed to the office of Mother Saryang. The second queen, Mother Manwol whose title was Queen Mother Gyeongsu, was the daughter of Gakgan Uichung. One day, the ruler called on Great Master Pyohun and said: “I am without luck in having progeny. Request the Superior Sovereign [the Highest Divine] to grant me a son.” Great Master Pyohun ascended to heaven to address his request and returned to tell the king, “You may seek a daughter. A son is not adequate.” The king replied, “Let the daughter be changed to a son.” Pyohun ascended to heaven and requested so. The Superior Sovereign told him, “It can be done. If a son is born, however, he will risk the state.” The Superior Sovereign added, “The distinction between heaven and the human must not be defiled. You are spilling the heavenly secret. Your return is not granted from now on.” Pyohun came to the ruler and transmitted the Superior Sovereign’s words. In reply, the king said, “I wish to have a son to succeed my throne, even if that will risk the state.” In due time, the Queen gave birth to a son, the crown prince. The king was overjoyed. When the crown prince was eight-year-old, the king died. The crown prince was enthroned, Hyegong the Great. Because the king was too young, Queen Mother ruled on his behalf. Political affairs were not stabilized. Thieves rose like a swarm of bees. The words of Great Master Pyohun came true. The crown prince had been originally a daughter but was born as a son. To no one’s surprise, he was fond of doing lady’s play-games and carrying a silk purse on him from the age one till the year of his enthronement. He flirted with male masters. That brought the state into a great chaos. He was killed by [the future] Seondeok the Great [the next ruler] and Gim Yangsang. No saint was born in Silla after Great Master Pyohun [brackets are mine].[2]
It is apparent that the 13th century Buddhist author of the Samguk Yusa appropriates the episode for his agenda, which is to reshape Korean history from the Buddhist perspective. Despite that, the above account indicates a substantive shift in court politics concerning sexes. Tangible is the collective intelligence of people that Gyeongdeok stood at the crossroad upon deciding his successor. Gyeongdeok went far to demand a baby son at the risk of the state’s existence.[3] On the other hand, Gyeongdeok’s wish for the patrilineal succession of his throne by his son did not accord with the divine plan of the Superior Divine, Mago the Creatrix. When it comes to Magoist Cetaceanism, Gyeongdeok’s achievements are not minor: (1) He was the master planner of Manbul-san, the replica of a paradisiacal mountain run by the cetacean bell sounds, and the Divine Bell. [4] (2) His first queen Sammo commissioned the Great Bell of Hwangryongsa (Yellow Dragon Temple). [5] (3) His second queen Manwol undertook the Divine Bell project and completed it. With his achievements concerning the whale-dragon bell, Gyeongdeok is attributed to the amalgamation of Magoist Cetaceanism and Buddhism.
The motif that he was destined to have a female baby was a narrative apparatus to convey that the throne belongs to women. To the point, Gyeongdeok expressed his wish for a male baby even if that would go against the law of heaven. Such is no random story. The Sillan royal house just ended the royal matrilineage, which coincided with the death of his father, Seongdeok the Great.[6] The two queens of Gyeongdeok, Sammo and Manwol, did not come from the Sulrye matrilineage (see [Table 7]).
And his son, Hyegong, is further depicted as a male who was supposed to be born as a female in the same book. His regent mother, Manwol, ruled the state. And her court was shaken by multiple male rebellions from the start. Hyegong was killed during the rebellion, which involved the next ruler, Seondeok. Queen Mother Manwol was doubtless deposed.[7] That said, noteworthy are the records that Hyegong in his 12th year of rule paid visit to Gameunsa (Graced Temple)[8] and his ash was spread in the Sea of Whales nearby Gameunsa. Gameunsa is associated with the Pacifying Flute and the Sea Tomb of Munmu the Great in the Sea of Whales who wished to become the state-protecting dragon. These historical sources substantiate the insight that the legacy of Magoist Cetaceanism ran deep in Manwol’s court. Consequently, the Divine Bell completed by her was her political statement that she succeeded the legacy of Magoist Cetaceanism.
The Late Period (735-935), fell under political chaos and instability due to rebellions led by male members of the royal household.[9] Late Silla continued without the royal matrilineage till the end. Despite that, the succession of Sillan rulers was under the matricentric republic system. A full-fledged patrilineage did not rise. Rulers continued to be selected or enthroned within the proximity of royal sub-matrilineages. Male members of the royal household competed for the throne based on their relations to the royal matrilineage. Patrilineages of rulers from the 38th till the 56th did not last for more than three generations.[10] The last two rulers of Gyeongae and Gyeongsun came from no patrilineage. The last ruler 56th Gyeongsun the Great yielded the state to the founding ruler of a new dynasty, Goryeo (918-1392).
Conclusively, Silla’s unification of post-Budo Korean Magoist states in 676, originally propelled by the self-defined Magoist mandate to revive the legacy of matriversal sovereignty, brought a gradual demise to matriarchal leadership. Sillans realized that male leadership was in question but inevitable. The onset of Unified Silla synchronized with the decline of matriarchal leadership headed by Queen Mothers and Queens. Endorsing male leadership out of necessity came with the price. It eroded the very foundation that matriarchal leadership was built on, a historical conundrum for Sillan rulers in general. Under the milieu of patriarchal international and domestic politics (in the post-Budo period), male rulers were destined to deflect from matriarchal political authority and ultimately from matriversal sovereignty, which in turn gave rise to rebellions. The ancient consciousness that planetary history ran degressively proves true in the vicissitudes of Sillan history. Sillan politics was no exception. Exclusion of matrilineal queen mothers meant that the vision of realizing the One People of Mago, the Creatrix, was misconstrued and mythologized, fell to the minds of esoteric hermits. Moderns see the whale-dragon bells but do not have the Magoist Cetacean language to understand them.
(To be continued)
[1] It was the 33rd ruler, Seongdeok the Great, who began to reestablish a diplomatic relation with Tang China. From the 8th year of Munmu to the second year of Seongdeok for 35 years, Silla was not in diplomatic relation with Tang China. Hyun-ju Lee, “A Study on Self-Awareness of the Manwall in the Middle Shilla Dynasty: an Analysis of the Sacred Bell of King Sungduk the Great,” Women and History (여성과 역사) V 27 (2017), 145.
[2] Samguk Yusa, Volume 2, Gii Chapter 2. The account that Hyegong was killed by these two rebels varies in another source. What is evident is that Hyegong was killed by the rebel force.
[3] Sillans had three Queen rulers and two of whom preceded him. Two of them, Queen Seondrok (27th) and Queen Jideok (28th), came before the onset of Unified Silla. The last queen ruler, Queen Jinseong (51st, r. 887-897), comes in the late ninth century.
[4] I discussed above “Manbulsan” with regards to Poroe, the crying dragon at the sight of a whale.
[5] The Great Bell of Hwangryongsa (Yellow Dragon Temple) did not survive, hereafter the Great Bell. According to the Samguk Yusa, it was the largest bell of Silla, four times larger than the Divine Bell, cast in 754 during the reign of Gyeongdeok the Great. Commissioned by Queen Sammo (Three-fold Sprout), the first consort of Gyeongdeok the Great, the Great Bell comes between the Sangwonsa Bell (725) and the Divine Bell (771) in time.
[6] Seongdeok was born from the Bodo sub-lineage of the royal matrilineage, but his two queens came from two different sub-lineages. The first queen, Seongjeong, was from the Odo sub-lineage and the second queen, Sodeok, the mother of Gyeongdeok, came from the matrilineage of unknown. See Appendix I.
[7] In the 4th year of Hyegong (under Manwol’s rule), there were rebellions by Daegong and Daeryeom and in the 6th year, there was a rebellion by Gim Yung. Hyun-Ju Lee, “A Study on Self-Awareness,” 155.
[8] Samguk Sagi, Silla Bongi, Chapter 6, cited in the article below listed. The same article notes that Gameunsa was visited by the 48th ruler Gyeongmun the Great (r. 861-875). This indicates that the Sillan royal house continued to commemorate Munmu’s cetacean devotion in the Late Period of Silla. Sang-Tae Kim, “A Study on the ornaments of a case preserving relics of the Buddha and the principal composition of twin-pagodas at Gameunsa temple,” Geonchuksa Yeongu, Vol 16, No 2 (2007), 138,
https://koreascience.kr/article/JAKO200731235452009.pdf. Gameunsa is considered as a Magoist Cetacean site for not only its myth of the Pacifying Flute but also the very architecture whose main hall had a substructure, which allowed the tidal waves (the dragon) to enter and flow. As such, its water entrance is called the dragon channel (龍穴 yonghyeol). See Jeong-Min Lee, “Study on the Design Ideas and Planning Method of the Gameunsa Temple Architecture in Silla (신라 감은사 건축의 계획이념과 설계기술 고찰),” MUNHWAJAE Korean Journal of Cultural Heritage Studies (문화재) 54, no. 1 (March 2021), 238-9, 253.
[9] I have divided the history of Silla into three periods based on the two major matrilineages. Shown in Appendixes I and II, the Early Period begins from Holy Mother of Mt. Seondo till the end of Queen Naeryeo, consort of the 8th ruler Adala. The Middle Period begins with Sulryeo, mother of the 13th ruler Michu, till the end of Queen Saso, mother of the 37th ruler Seondeok, the year 785. And the late period begins with the 38th ruler Wonseong and ends with the last 56th ruler Gyeongsun.
[10] For the Late Period, see Appendix II.