(Bell Essay 6) The Magoist Whale Bell: Unraveling the Cetacean Code of Korean Temple Bells by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

[Author’s Note: The part 6 and ensuing sequels are a new development from the original essay sequels on Korean Temple Bells and Magoism that first published January 11, 2013 in this current magazine. See (Bell Essay 1) Ancient Korean Bells and Magoism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.]

Introduction

The Korean temple bell is no mere Buddhist device. Calling it a Sillan Esoteric Buddhist invention in origin only adds to its mystification. Commissioned by Sillan rulers who represented traditional Magoist shaman rulers, Sillan temple bells administer sonic balance within and without all beings once and for all. In short, the Sillan temple bell reenacts the Magost Cosmogony HERE and NOW.^[1] Engendering resonance to the self-creative power of cosmic music, Yulryeo (Rhythms and Tones), the Korean temple bell summons the paradisiacal reality of the Creatrix, Mago. Cast in the form of a female body, the bell structurally embodies the gynocentric principle of the Creatrix, the Mago Way. I have discussed earlier such features as nine nipples and apsaras. Here the dragon figure (Yongnyu) and the sound tube (Yongtong or Eumtong) in its head are focused. Multi-functional and polysemic, the dragon is there not only to be the loop for hanging but also to envelop the sound tube, seen below. Among others, the sound tube stands out as a distinctive feature of Korean temple bells that distinguishes them from their Chinese and Japanese counterparts. What is the sound tube of the Korean temple bell? Why do Korean temple bells have a sound tube? Answers to these questions concern a yet-to-be-unraveled undergirding theme of the Korean temple bell, the whale. Although its origin is debated, the sound tube signals Sillan cetacean veneration. In the mytho-history of Magoism, Silla (57 BCE-935 CE) stands as a prominent ancient Korean state, which succeeded and flowered ancient Magoist cetaceanism. Sillan cetacenism defines Silla as a new government that succeeded Old Magoist confederacies. In this context, we can assess a whale-shaped wooden mallet, which is no mere decorative addition to the bell. Nonetheless, the whale-shaped mallet is only a tip of the cetacean meaning of the bell.

A whale (고래 Gorae in Korean) is the very model that the Korean temple bell (the bell hereafter) takes after, especially for its vocalizations. The bell mimics the music of whales. While the latter is heard in water, the former is heard in land. Its cetacean names corroborate such an assessment. The bell is called Janggyeong (長鯨 Eternal Whale), Gyeongjong (鯨鐘 Whale Bell), Hwagyeong (華鯨 Splendid Whale), or Geogyeong (巨鯨 Gigantic Whale). As such, the sound of the bell is alternatively called “the sound of whale (鯨音gyeongeum).” Ancient Koreans perceived whales, pre-human in origin and once a land animal, as the messenger of the Creatrix, Mago. In folk traditions, the phrase, “riding the back of a whale,” was widely popularized among East Asians throughout history, which means that one returns to Mago, by riding the back of a whale upon death.

That ancient Koreans were cetacean venerators remains esoteric. The cetacean code of Korean temple bells holds the key to unraveling what has gone suppressed in patriarchy, the Magoist Cosmogony. By the Magoist Cosmogony, I mean a systematic origin story of our universe, as is recounted in the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City). I have summarized the Budoji’s cosmogonic chapters in my aforementioned book, The Mago Way, as follows: 

• The Magoist Cosmogony highlights the sonic movement of cosmic elements as the Creatrix. In the beginning, there was light. The movement/vibration of light (cosmic music) in the universe caused creation to take place over eons. Stars were born in the previous cosmic era. In due time, Mago was born together with the Earth (the Stronghold of Mago) with her moons. Her (self-)emergence marks the beginning of earthly history. Mago listened to and acted in tune with the cyclic movement of the cosmic music. In further due time, S/HE bore two daughters, Gunghui (Goddess Gung) and Sohui (Goddess So) parthenogenetically. This Primordial Triad laid the foundation for the earthly environment for all species. Mago, assisted by HER two daughters, orchestrated the terrestrial plan to bring acoustic balance in harmony with the cosmic music/sound/vibration. S/HE delegated HER descendants to cultivate and manage the sonic equilibrium of the Earth [Italics added].^[2]

Precisely, the Sillan temple bell encodes the message that whales are the paragon of Magoists whose mandate is “to cultivate and manage the sonic equilibrium of the Earth.” Restoring Magoist cetaceanism is metamorphic. Antithetical to the very establishment of patriarchy, ancient Magoist Korean cetacean practice unfolds the Other World that has been ever HERE. This essay, assessing the sound tube as a Magoist code of Sillan cetaceanism, aims to delineate how the Magoist cetacean meaning came to be encoded in the sound tube of the bell by the Sillan rulers of the 7th and 8th centuries. In decoding the cetacean message, we are led to the myth of Manpasikjeok (萬波息笛 the pacifying flute that defeats all, hereafter the pacifying flute), a Sillan royal treasure that is hermeneutically construed as made of the tusk of a narwhal. A group of Korean scholars maintain that the sound tube was designed to represent the pacifying flute. The task of this essay is to go further and to re-read the myth of Manpasikjeok—a story of King Sinmun the Great (r. 681-692) of Silla (57 BCE-935 CE) who was told by a sea dragon to create a flute out of a mysterious bamboo tree growing in a mysterious mountain in the East Sea, alternatively known as the Sea of Whales—from the Magoist perspective. This story has been written and misinterpreted as an enigmatic Buddhist story.

I hold that “Ruler (King or Queen) the Great (大王 Daewang),” unlike other kings of the ancient world, does not refer to a patriarchal monarch. It is a Magoist cetacean term that is related with “Ruler Whale the Great (Daewang Gorae),” referring to the blue whale for its gigantic size or whales collectively. By adopting the cetacean title of “Ruler the Great” for their rulers, the Sillan royal house assumed the role of the matriarchal whale ruler, the grandmother of the sea who leads and looks after all sea creatures as well as the marine environment. While some species of whales are studied for their matriarchal socieities, whales are in general perceived as gift-givers. Gray whales in particular are called “the farmer of the sea” among Koreans, for they “plow” the bottom of the sea with their head by virtue of taking tiny shrimp-like animals (amphipods and mysids) in the mouth.^[3] As such, they are called Soe Gorae (쇠고래 Cow Gorae) or Guisin Gorae (귀신고래 Spirit Whale) in Korean. More to the point, scientists report that whale feces provides rich nutrients to sea plants known as phytoplankton on the surface.^[4]Whales are divine and so are Sillan Magoist rulers.

The particular bell in focus is the Divine Bell of King Seongdeok the Great (the Divine Bell hereafter) also known as the Bell of Bongdeok-sa (奉德寺 Virtue Venerating Temple) or Emille Bell. Cast to honor King Seongdeok (r. 702-737), the second son of King Sinmun, the Divine Bell, which was first housed in Bongdeoksa, possibly a whale shrine,[5] stands as an extant emblem of Sillan Magoist cetacanism. I hold that the Magoist Cosmogony underpins both narratives, the make of Manpasikjeok and the cast of the Divine Bell. In short, the Divine Bell is a Sillan cetacean text for the Magoist Cosmogony, which accordingly uncovers the Magoist root of Sillan Esoteric Buddhism (Milgyo 密敎), the Vajraya or Tantric traditions. Whales are proclaimed as human mammal ancestors whose vocalizations in particular have revealed the cosmogonic reality of the Creatrix. On the one hand, Sillan cetacean veneration dethrones anthropocentrism as a false patriarchal ideology. On the other hand, it charts the Mago Way once and for all. We humans are here to undertake the task of tuning earthly sonic resonance to cosmic music, the self-creatice force of the universe of “the music of spheres,” as whales do.

(To be continued)

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

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[1] On the Magoist Cosmogony, see Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, The Mago Way: Re-discovering the Great Goddess Mago from East Asia (Lytle Creek, CA: Mago Books 2015) in particular Chapters 6, 7, and 8.

[2] Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, The Mago Way, 11.

[3] Hongseop Jo, “Whales are the farmer of the sea, their feces is rich fertilizers (Gorae-neun bada-ui nongbu, yeongyang deumppuk baeseolmul-I ‘georeum’ 고래는 바다의 농부, 영양 듬뿍 배설물이 ‘거름’)” (July 25, 2011). http://ecotopia.hani.co.kr/17752 (February 15, 2019).

[4]  Wynne Parry, “Whale Poo: The Ocean’s Miracle Grow” in Live Science (October 13, 2010). https://www.livescience.com/8788-whale-poo-ocean-miracle-grow.html (February 15, 2019).

[5] Sungkyu Kim maintains that Bongdeoksa was a cetacean shrine rather than a Buddhist shrine. https://bit.ly/2Nd4TEh (February 19, 2019). I hold that it is of a Magoist whale shrine or an Esoteric Buddhist shrine.