The Foresight of Dark Knowing : : Chŏng Kam nok and Insurrectionary Prognostication in Pre-Modern Korea / / John Jorgensen; ed. by Robert E. Buswell.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DG Plus eBook-Package 2018
• VerfasserIn: Jorgensen, John,
• HerausgeberIn: Buswell, Robert E.,
• Place / Publishing House: Honolulu : : University of Hawaii Press, , [2018]; ©2018
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Series: Korean Classics Library: Philosophy and Religion
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (520 p.)

Korea has long had an underground insurrectionary literature. The best-known example of the genre is the Chŏng Kam nok, a collection of premodern texts predicting the overthrow of the Yi Dynasty (1392-1910) that in recent times has been invoked by a wide range of groups to support various causes and agendas: from leaders of Korea's new religious movements formed during and after the Japanese occupation to spin doctors in the South Korean elections of the 1990s to proponents of an aborted attempt to move the capital from Seoul in the early 2000s.Written to inspire uprisings and foment dissatisfaction, the Chŏng Kam nok texts are anonymous and undated. (Most were probably written between the seventeenth and late nineteenth centuries.) In his expansive introduction to this first English translation, John Jorgensen notes that the work employs forms or codes of political prediction (Ch. tuch'en; Kor. toch'am) allied with Chinese geomancy (fengshui) but in a combination unique to Korea. The two types of codes appear to deal with different subjects-the potency of geographical locations and political predictions derived from numerological cycles, omens, and symbols-but both emerge from a similar intellectual sphere of prognostication arts that includes divination, the Yijing (Book of Changes), physiognomy, and astrology in early China, and both share theoretical components, such as the fluctuation of ki (Ch. qi). In addition to ambiguous and obscure passages, allusion and indirection abound; many predictions are attributed to famous people in the distant past or made after the fact to lend the final outcome an air of authority. Jorgensen's invaluable introduction contains a wealth of background on the history and techniques of political prediction, augury, and geomancy from the first-century Han dynasty in China to the end of the nineteenth century in Korea, providing readers with a thorough account of East Asian geomancy based on original sources.This volume will be welcomed by students and scholars of premodern Korean history and beliefs and those with an interest in early, arcane sources of political disinformation that remain relevant in South Korea to this day.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Part I. Translator's Introduction -- Historical Background -- History of the Mantic Arts -- Early Korea: From the Beginnings to the Advent of Koryŏ -- Koryŏ -- Chosŏn -- Conclusion -- Part II. Translation -- Translator's Note -- 1. Predictions of Kam -- 2. Yin-Yang Predictions on the Central Palace -- 3. The Numbers of the Central Palace -- 4. Secret Records/Predictions of the Mountains and Forests of the Sam Han -- 5. Secret Predictions of Muhak -- 6. History Discussions of Five Hundred [Years] -- 7. Secret Record of the History of the Discussions of Five Hundred [Years] -- 8. Secret Record/Prediction of Tosŏn -- 9. Secret Predictions of Chŏng Pukch'ang -- 10. Secret Predictions of Nam Sago -- 11. The Ten Excellent Sites for Protection and Good Luck -- 12. Secret Predictions of Great Master Sŏsan -- 13. Secret Predictions of Du Shicong -- 14. Refuge Locations -- 15. Record of the Journey on Hwa'ak Road -- 16. Record of the Journey on the Road to Puktu -- 17. The Method of the Changing Numbers of the Nine Mansions -- 18. Predictions of Ongnyongja -- 19. Predictions Hidden in the House of Mr. Yi of Kyŏngju -- 20. The Poem of Samdobong -- 21. Untitled -- 22. Predictions Hidden in the House of Master Yi of Sŏ'gye -- 23. Hidden Predictions of T'ojŏng's Family -- 24. Secret Predictions of Yi T'ojŏng -- 25. Poem of the Summer Grains of Kap-o -- 26. The Predictions of Kam -- 27. Teachings of Master Yixing -- 28. The Foresight of Dark Knowing -- 29. Predictions of Chŏng Sun'ong -- 30. Predictions of the Grass Hermitage -- 31. Predictions of the Immortal Nang -- 32. Ongnyongja on Ch'ŏnghak-dong -- Appendix: The Kap-Cha Cycle -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index