Baedamsa Temple, Inje, South Korea
746, Baekdam-ro,
Buk-myeon, Inje-gun, Gangwon-do, Republic of Korea
Baedamsa
Temple, nestled at the heart of the inner Seorak range, is a place connected to
two figures who left profoundly significant marks on Korea's modern and
contemporary history. It is also, for me personally, a place threaded through
with memories from childhood. Heading out from Inje in Gangwon Province toward
the junction for Hangyeryeong Pass and turning in the direction of Jinburyeong,
one soon reaches the entrance to Baedamsa at Yongdae-ri; from there, an unpaved
road winds upward for some eight kilometers before the temple comes into view.
In years past, visitors would walk this path for two hours, or make the journey
by taxi or private car. But returning after twenty years, I found that
everything had changed: all private vehicles are now stopped at the national
park entrance, and the only way to reach the temple parking area is by a
shuttle bus run for a fare of two thousand won each way. The shuttle, I was
told, is operated by residents of the surrounding village — a welcome sight of
the kind one more often associates with famous tourist destinations or national
parks abroad.
Baedamsa,
revisited after nearly twenty years, has changed a great deal. What was once a
small and modest hermitage has expanded considerably; multiple new halls now
stand within the precinct, and the temple runs templestay programs alongside
various other revenue-generating activities, much like well-known temples
elsewhere in the country. The atmosphere of remote solitude that I remembered
from before — the sense of a place deep in the mountains, quietly keeping to
itself — has largely disappeared, and I felt a faint pang of regret at finding
it gone. Yet the valley stream of the inner Seorak flowing before the temple
was as beautiful as ever, and for a long while I found myself lost in memories
of my university years, when I had climbed the trail from this very spot up
through Bongjeongam Hermitage all the way to Daecheongbong Peak — a route I
completed three times in those days.
According
to the temple chronicle written by the monk Manhae Han Yong-un, Baedamsa was
founded in 647 — the first year of Queen Jindeok, the twenty-eighth ruler of
Silla — by the monk Jajang, under the name Hangyesa, and was renamed Baedamsa
in 1783. This brings me to Manhae Han Yong-un himself, the author of that
chronicle, who cannot go unmentioned here. The name Manhae Han Yong-un may call
to mind first and foremost his poetry collection The Silence of Love, but Manhae
was far more than a poet: he was the preeminent Buddhist intellectual of the
Japanese colonial period, a leading figure in the resistance against Japanese
rule, one of the thirty-three representatives of the Korean people who signed
the Declaration of Independence during the March First Movement of 1919, and
the founder and driving force behind the Korean Buddhist Youth Association —
one of the most prominent independence activists of his era.
Perhaps
because of this, once one understands that background and looks at Baedamsa
with fresh eyes, the entire atmosphere of the place seems suffused with
Manhae's presence. The experience of passing through Baedamsa in youth as
little more than a waystation on the way to climb Seoraksan, and the experience
of returning with a true understanding of the temple's history, are entirely
different things. Baedamsa was never a large temple to begin with, and it holds
no particularly notable cultural artifacts. Yet the spirit of Manhae Han
Yong-un that permeates this place, and the traces he left here, are alone
enough to give the whole temple an overwhelming weight.
There
is, however, a second figure associated with Baedamsa — former President Chun
Doo-hwan. Having seized power through the military coup of May 1980 and
subsequently convicted of massive corruption following his time in office, Chun
served part of his sentence before receiving a presidential pardon, after which
he retreated to Baedamsa for several years of self-imposed seclusion,
eventually returning to his home in Seoul once public attention had subsided.
Baedamsa stands at the center of that chapter of his life. Standing within the
temple grounds and holding both men in mind, the contrast could not be starker:
one figure's legacy grows only brighter, the other's only more squalid. Had
Chun known how history would judge him, one imagines he might have thought
twice before choosing to take refuge in a place so imbued with Manhae's moral
and spiritual legacy.
There
is an irony in all of this. Baedamsa was once little more than a small
hermitage — precisely the quality that gave it such warmth and intimacy. But in
the wake of the former president's stay and the notoriety it brought, the
temple appears to have grown several times over in scale, expanding into
something rivaling the more established temples of the country. For someone who
travels in search of Korea's finest and most unspoiled temples, it registers as
something of a blemish on an otherwise fine picture. I arrived at Baedamsa at
four in the afternoon, and after an hour of wandering through every corner of
the grounds, it was five o'clock; the sun was beginning to settle against the
mountainside, and the temple, caught in the backlight, took on a quality of
quiet mystery. It was just at that moment that I had to hurry away to make the
return journey, and riding the shuttle bus back down to Yongdae-ri, I let my
thoughts drift once more to those precious memories of younger days.
If you would like to
experience a unique side of Korea, the "Land of the Morning Calm,"
please feel free to reach out. I host small, private guided tours tailored for
international visitors.
Contact:
7sevensmart@gmail.com
https://korean-heritage-trail.blogspot.com/
https://www.photonuri.com
