Choe Chiwon - Retirement and Later Life

Retirement and Later Life

Few records remain of Choe's middle and late years. Around the year 900 Choe retired from public life and began a period of wandering through numerous Korean locales. As the Samguk Sagi relates, "Living in retirement, took up the free life of a mountain sage, building pavilions along rivers and shores, planting pines and bamboo, reading books and writing history, and composing odes to nature. He is known to have dwelled in such places as Namsan in Gyeongju, Bingsan in Gangju, Cheongnyang Temple in Habju, Ssanggye Temple in Jirisan, and a cottage in Habpohyeon." The Haeundae region of modern-day Busan takes its name from one of Choe's pennames (Haeun) as he purportedly was enamored of the location and so built a pavilion there overlooking the beach. A piece of Choe's calligraphy engraved on a rock still survives there. Eventually Choe settled at Haeinsa Temple where his elder brother Hyeonjun (賢俊) served as abbot. His later years are most notable for his lengthy stele inscriptions, hagiographies to Silla's most noted Buddhist priests that have proved a primary source of information on Silla Buddhism.

One well known anecdote regarding Choe in these years regards a putative piece of verse he dispatched to Wang Geon, the founder of the Goryeo Dynasty. Apparently convinced by the greatness of Wang Geon, notably by the promulgation of his Ten Injunctions, Choe came to believe that Wang Geon had inherited the mandate of heaven to succeed the declining Silla dynasty as the ruler of the peninsula. Reflecting this, he secretly sent off a prophetic verse reflecting his support of the new dynasty: “The leaves of the Cock Forest are yellow, the pines of Snow Goose Pass are green.” (계림황엽 곡령청송, 鷄林黃葉 鵠嶺靑松). Cock Forest (Gyerim) being an ancient sobriquet for Silla and Snow Goose Pass (Gongnyeong) being the ancestral home of Wang Geon, and by association the Goryeo Dynasty. However, this anecdote first appeared in the 12th century Samguk Sagi, long after Choe had died and some modern scholars concur that Choe, a native and ardent supporter of Silla, never penned it but that it was attributed to him by a young Goryeo dynasty to buttress its legitimacy and win over the support of young Silla scholars to its enterprise.

The date of Choe's death is unknown, though he was still living as late as 924, the date of one of his surviving stele engravings. One fantastic account relates that Choe's straw slippers were discovered at the edge of the forest on Mt. Gaya (Gayasan), the location of Haeinsa, and that Choe had become a Daoist immortal and ascended into the heavens. More grounded historical theories posit that he committed suicide, but this is ultimately conjecture.