Spending Money Only Brings More Windfalls - 2
"Please come with us first. We'll need to ask whether the abbot can spare us a moment of his time, so there may be some waiting involved."
The young monks led me to the administrative office.
The office handled the temple's paperwork and general affairs, and the head monk in charge of administration seemed to be in the inner office. One of the young monks went in, then came back out and opened the door for me.
"Please meet with the head monk first."
Was this like having to go through the chief secretary before meeting a company chairman?
Then again, a total stranger had just shown up out of nowhere asking to see the head of the place. Naturally, they'd want to know who I was and what my business with the abbot was. The head monk would meet me first, and if I didn't pass muster, he'd turn me away at the door.
"Welcome."
The head monk was thin-framed and struck me as remarkably sharp. Bright-eyed and quick in his movements, he invited me to sit and immediately set about boiling water in the coffee pot to prepare tea. Both his hands were busy at once, yet nothing about him felt flustered — probably because he moved with an easy, unhurried looseness.
"You mentioned something about an earring? The practicing monks were quite taken aback. May I ask exactly what you intend to say to the abbot regarding this earring?"
This was him testing me — probing how much I knew, and telling me to lay my cards on the table first.
"What I know is simply that an earring was found inside a Buddha statue, and that I believe I know who took it. I've come to see the abbot so I can share what I know."
"Then please tell us who these people are. If the concealed relics are recovered thanks to the information you provide, a reward will be paid."
The head monk poured hot water to warm the teapot as he spoke.
"You've heard about the reward, haven't you?"
"Yes, I have."
"I don't know through whom you obtained your information, but I trust you're also aware that if you fail to keep it confidential, you'll owe compensation rather than receive a reward."
In other words: we'll pay the reward, but leak the secret and we'll sue you for damages. So spit out what you know and get lost — that was the gist of it, more or less.
"I didn't come here for a reward."
I'm rich, you know.
Fifteen hundred million won from selling the first meteorite. Twelve hundred million from the white porcelain Mak-sun Halmeoni had been keeping. After paying Lee Ho-young his one hundred million fee, eleven hundred million left. Then another three billion from selling the second meteorite to Lee Ho-young, plus the ten million won merit award from the joint Korean-American artifact appraisal team, and the golden turtle from the river trout festival.
The money for Grandpa Hosik's land and my house repairs — that came from investing, not from touching the principal.
In other words, I hadn't spent a single won of the original capital. Even my severance pay from resigning sat untouched in my account.
On top of all that, once the mid-Joseon Bihwarok transaction closed, another 2.75 billion would come in. I had no idea yet who I'd sell Moritake Shoichi's letter to, but that money was on its way too.
So no — did it look like I'd come all this way for a mere hundred million?
One hundred million was serious money, sure. But money wasn't what brought me here.
"If your offer is 'here's a hundred million, give us the information and be on your way,' then I'm going to stand up and leave right now."
"That sounds as though you want something else entirely."
"I do. What I want to know is exactly how much has been stolen from you, and for how long."
"H-how could you possibly—"
The head monk visibly faltered.
"So my guess was right? Please, tell me. What on earth has been going on at Wol-sang Temple?"
To someone with the will to do it, a thousand-year-old temple like Wol-sang must have been a vault left with its door hanging open. treasure could be carted off as easily as anything.
The reason I thought this way was the Tabot — Dabotap Pagoda.
During the colonial era, Dabotap had been fully dismantled under the pretense of comprehensive restoration. That was when the four stone lions supporting the pagoda vanished without a trace.
With the sarira chamber — the space where the sarira relics were kept — no longer held up by those lions, the concealed relics disappeared along with them.
Korea as a nation was effectively gone by then, and its officials were all collaborators. They watched the Government-General strip the pagoda bare during the restoration and said nothing.
Even after liberation, our own government had no idea Dabotap's treasures had been looted.
Then the hidden relic of Seokgatap came to light — the Mugujeonggwang Dae darani Sutra. And records survived showing that when Dabotap was built, a gilt-bronze box, a bronze casket, and a pure gold sarira vessel had been placed inside. Only then did anyone realize the relics had been stolen — but by then, there was nowhere left to look.
Years later, Ogura Takenosuke held an exhibition of his private collection, and that was where Dabotap's concealed relics turned up — the so-called Ogura Collection. The vast majority of it was Korean cultural heritage spirited out of the country.
They say the collection runs to several thousand pieces. He didn't just rob a temple — he stole an entire museum.
Could Wol-sang Temple have been spared something like that?
If anything, this place seems to have been looted far earlier.
A temple founded a thousand years ago — even a single step stone on its stairway counted as cultural heritage. Through Silla and Goryeo and on into the Joseon dynasty, Wol-sang had always drawn a devoted following. The donations must have poured in, funding new Buddha statues, new halls, new pagodas. And to accomplish all that, they would have summoned master craftsmen of renown from every corner of the country — men who poured Buddhist devotion plus an artist's very soul into their work.
And someone defaced it all.
The spirits drifting everywhere around the temple grounds. The ones clutching hammers and saws, axes and chisels, lingering among the pagodas, the bells, the buildings. Could it be that they couldn't leave this place because the pagodas and statues they had spent their whole lives creating had been violated?
I took a sip of tea and looked at the head monk.
"The countless Buddha statues, the Nachal guardian figures, the bodhisattva statues of Wol-sang — were strange things found inside them too? Or did no one know, and it only came to light now that you've begun restoration work?"
"Just who are you, sir?"
The door suddenly swung open and an elderly monk strode in. The head monk bowed his head.
"This is our abbot."
"It's an honor to meet you. My name is Kim Yunho. I've come because I know where the concealed relics of the stolen Buddha statue are."
"I would like to hear more about what you've just said. Will you share tea with me?"
The abbot proposed the tea gathering while looking at me as though grasping at straws.
"Yes, let's do that."
Even as darkness pressed in thick around us, the abbot climbed the mountain path without hesitation. Lamps glowed along both sides of the trail, but they were woefully inadequate against the deep night of Mount Odae's interior.
One wrong step and I'd be heading straight to the afterlife.
Following the narrow footpath along the hillside, we came upon a stretch where a rope had been strung up.
"There's a hermitage up there. We're almost there."
At a bend of the trail, I could just make out a faint light flickering where I had to crane my neck to see it. When monks undertook silent meditation or wall-contemplation in pursuit of enlightenment, they would seclude themselves in hermitages like this one and practice seated meditation.
Wow. Enlightenment would smack me upside the head on its own, climbing this.
It was freezing cold, ice glazing everything in sight, and we had to haul ourselves up by a single rope — the old saying jeongsin-ildo hasabulseong rose unbidden to my lips: single-minded devotion makes even the Buddha yield success.
The abbot, pushing seventy this year, had eaten nothing but greens for ages, yet he went bounding up toward the hermitage as if he could fly.
"Hah... hah..."
Relying on my unnatural strength, I dug in with my legs and gripped the rope, and at last made it to the front of the hermitage.
"Here it is. This is where a Buddha statue was opened up and its concealed relics removed."
The hermitage called Cheonjinam — the Hermitage of Heavenly Truth — was even smaller than my bedroom. Built as a space for monks committed to austerity, its roof hung low, giving it the feel of a cave.
Oh!
Inside that tiny room, the spirit of a young child-monk and the spirit of an aged elder monk sat cross-legged. Whether we appeared or not, they simply continued their practice, as though keeping to their daily routine.
"Come inside."
The abbot passed by the child-monk's spirit and entered the room. The boy — seven years old, perhaps? — slipped off to the kitchen beside the hermitage to run the elder monk's errands.
"Sir?"
"Ah — yes."
I followed the abbot into the hermitage.
"This is where the abbots of Wol-sang, myself included, have practiced seated meditation. The statue there was found to contain the earring during restoration work."
The abbot went around behind the wooden table and, just like the head monk, switched on the power to the coffee pot.
Something about this place makes my chest feel warm.
It was strange — even though these were the dwelling spirits of a child-monk and an old monk, not a single shiver ran through me.
The abbot spread open a ledger as thick as a brick from beneath the wooden table.
An old document, written in brush.
"These are the records of Wol-sang's treasures and furnishings. When a statue was opened, it was marked like this."
I studied the ledger closely, then tilted my head.
"This has been doctored."
"Yes, it has. The dates recorded for the openings are all different, yet the handwriting is identical."
"That's not the only strange thing."
I pointed to the section listing the concealed relics.
"You were robbed three times in total. You can tell from the relics that came out when statues were opened."
With a soft rustle, the elder monk's spirit rose and came to my side. Then he bent forward, studying intently the places my finger indicated.
You didn't know your concealed relics had been plundered three times, Venerable?
At my question, the elder monk gave a slow, solemn nod.
And who might you be? Which abbot were you, of all the abbots of this temple?
The elder monk turned his head away.
You don't wish to say right now. All right — we'll talk later, then.
I lifted my head and spoke to the current abbot.
"According to this record, a large-scale restoration began here in the mid-Joseon period, covering the Buddha statue of the main hall and the stone pagoda in its courtyard. That was the first opening. At that time, it looks like they hastily filled the statues with prayer beads and sutras that happened to be on hand at the temple."
They must have opened the statue and pagoda for repairs only to find them empty. Realizing they had already been gutted by grave robbers, they rushed to stuff sutras and prayer beads back inside.
"Was the second time during the colonial era?"
"Yes. You can see it in the concealed relic records here."
During the Japanese colonial period, Japanese historians had dismantled Buddha statues and catalogued what they found inside — mid-Joseon sutras and prayer beads and the like. Things the Japanese scholars carted off as treasure, that is. And afterward, something would have been put back in their place.
"And the final time, the third..."
"The war. Am I right?"
"Yes. That's right."
Three times in all. Between the grave robbers and the Government-General, every Buddha statue in the main hall and the other major buildings seemed to have been stripped bare.
But the statue at Cheonjinam had never been opened even once — which meant its concealed relics had never been touched. No one would have bothered trekking all the way up to a place with nothing worth stealing just to cut open a statue's belly.
And then, only recently, the statue that had stood in this hermitage was finally opened.
The earring was inside that statue from the very beginning.
I looked at the elder monk's spirit and spoke in my heart.
You know, don't you, Venerable — because you're the one who built this hermitage.