Korea tourist destination #10 Jongmyo Shrine (Royal Ancestral Shrine)

  Jongmyo Shrine (Royal Ancestral Shrine)   

The Joseon Dynasty made'Confucianism' the basic philosophy of governing the country. According to Confucian etiquette, there must be three spaces in the national capital. The three places are the palace where the king stays, the Jongmyo Shrine where the ancestors are sacrificed, and the Sajikdan where the gods are sacrificed.

Accordingly, Jongmyo was the first place to appear when Joseon was founded. It is the place where the mortuary tables of kings and queens of the Joseon dynasty were enshrined and ancestral rites were held. It is a cultural heritage that shows the ancestral ritual formalities of the royal family, the Confucian tradition of the Joseon Dynasty.

Jongmyo Shrine is both majestic and understated beauty at the same time. All the buildings around the main hall and Yeongnyeongjeon are naturally harmonized with the surrounding landscape, giving you a magnificent and sacred atmosphere.

Joseon was a dynasty that used Confucianism as the basis for governing the country. Confucianism has its roots in ancestor worship, courtesy, and education. Confucianism believed that when a person dies, the soul and body are separated, the soul ascends to the sky and the body returns to the earth.

So, the living people made and kept symbols so that the souls of the dead could rely on them. The symbol is called Hsinchu. Confucianism lies deep in the lives of our ancestors, so we considered the souls of our deceased ancestors more important than anything else.

 

Koreans also considered it important to have a place for the soul of the deceased to stay and a place for the body to stay. In Confucianism, the place where the soul stays is the shrine, and the place where the body stays is the tomb, and Jongmyo is a special shrine that enshrines the souls of kings and queens.

 

  History of   Jongmyo Shrine  

During the Joseon Dynasty, Taejo Lee Seong-gye ascended the throne at Suchang Palace in Kaesong on July 17, 1392, opening the door to history. On July 28, the 12th day of his throne, Taejo posted the regnal names of mogjo, Ikjo, Dojo, and Hwanjo to his four great ancestors. Was sealed. In October of the 3rd year of King Taejo (1394), Taejo moved out of the old capital of Goryeo and transferred to Hanyang, Namgyeong, the Goryeo Dynasty, and the first thing he did after that was the construction of Jongmyo Shrine.

 

Jongmyo Shrine will be completed in September of the 4th year of King Taejo (1395) before the palace. The Jongmyo Shrine at this time was the appearance of a transept, a transept side room, with 7 spaces on the east and west sides, each with 2 spaces. In addition, five Gongsin-dang, three newspapers, three east gates, and one preface were built together, and fences were built around them. Outside the fence, there were 7 Shinju (神廚), 5 Hyanggwancheong (享官廳), 5 left and right haengrangs, 9 Namhaenggak, and 5 Jaegung (齋宮). This becomes the prototype of the existing Jongmyo Shrine.

 

The Jongmyo Shrine, which was completed during King Taejo, needed maintenance and supplementation in va o was a shrine dedicated to sin-wi (an ancestral tablet), so according to the principle of Feng Shui, he made a mountain artificially at the end of the mountain stalk in front of Jongmyo, whose terrain was weak. It was expanded in 1409) to give Jongmyo a good energy. In 1410, haengrangs were built on both east and west sides of Jongmyo Shrine, while the west haengrang was a closed space and functioned as a warehouse, and the east haengrang was an open space, and was used as a baerye office to avoid rain or snow during rituals. This is Korea's unique architectural style of Jongmyo, which is not in the Jongmyo system of China, and this is the east-west wolrang at both ends of the Jongmyo Palace.

 

Jongmyo was renovated and extended in the Taejongdae, and the current Jongmyo architectural system was established by the time of King Sejong. Originally, Jongmyo Shrine made 5 shrines in Taesil to enshrine the 4th generation of King Taejo and the gods of Taejo. There is nowhere to seal. Accordingly, according to the example of building and serving a tomb in the Song Dynasty in China, the tomb was built in the west of the main palace and called Yeongnyeongjeon. Its name is taken from the meaning of ‘Jojong and descendants must have a peaceful way.’ When it was first built in October of the 3rd year of King Sejong (1421), the size of Yeongnyeongjeon Hall was 6 spaces, each with 4 Taesils and 1 Iksil on the left and right. In this way, in December of the same year, the wooden gods were moved to Yeongnyeongjeon, and at Jongmyo Shrine, godwis under Ikjo were enshrined in order.

 

From then on, the architectural system of Jongmyo was settled as a system with Jongmyo and Yeongnyeongjeon, a separate shrine. Although the system was established like this, the construction situation was different. As the history of the dynasty continued, the number of gods to be enshrined continued to increase, and accordingly, the need for extensions was periodically raised, leading to remarkable extensions in Myeongjong, Hyeonjong, Yeongjo, and Heonjongdae.

 

The process of extension of Myeongjongdae is quite complicated. At that time, five gods, including Taejo, were enshrined in addition to the gods of Taejong and Sejong. Therefore, in order to enshrine the gods of King Jungjong in Jeongjeon, the gods of Taejong and Sejong could not be transferred, and the gods of Sejo had to be moved to Hyupsil or Yeongnyeongjeon. However, Myeongjong's family line was Sejo-Dukjong (Chuzon)-Seongjong-Jungjong-Myeongjong, so he couldn't send King Sejo's gods anywhere. Eventually, about 150 years after the Jongmyo was built, the main hall was extended, and at this time, four main halls were extended to become 11 units.

 

The Jongmyo Shrine, which had been settled in this way, turned into ashes overnight due to the Imjin War. After that, it started only in January of the 41st year of Seonjo (1608), a few years after the end of the war, and will be completed in May, three months after Gwanghaegun became king in February of the same year. The Jongmyo Shrine at this time was largely rebuilt on a pre-war scale, and the main hall remained in the same 11 spaces. However, Yeongnyeongjeon had four main halls, three left and right side rooms, and 10 spaces in total. Yeongnyeongjeon Hall will be renovated once again in the 8th year of King Hyeonjong (1667). At this time, the existing East-West side rooms were demolished, and 4 spaces were added to the left and right of the 4 Taesils to become a 12-room building. Gaming rooms were installed behind the east-west cooperative rooms, resulting in the same architectural style as the Jeongjeon Hall.

 

In the 2nd year of Yeongjo (1726), mian hall was expanded. This is because seven of the eleven rooms have sin-wis (an ancestral tablet), which are forever enshrined, and there is a shortage of them again. So, by adding 4 spaces to the east of the existing building, the main building becomes a 15-room building. At this time, as the main palace expanded to the east, other buildings on the east side, such as Jegigo, Dongwolang, Sinmun, and Dongmun, were also moved to the east.

 

The last extension of Jongmyo will be in the 2nd year of King Heonjong (1836). The contents of the extension were to add 4 spaces in the main hall and 2 spaces in each of the east-west side rooms of Yeongnyeongjeon. At this time, along with the extension of the main hall, annexed buildings such as Sinmun, Dongmun, Jaegung (Eosuksil), Gongsindang, Subokbang, and Daejeon Hall will be rebuilt to the east. Thus, in Jongmyo, there are 19 Taesil and 5 East and West side rooms, 35 for each, and for Yeongnyeongjeon, there are 4 Taesil and 5 East and West side rooms in the center. It becomes the size of the khan, which is the shape of the Jongmyo Shrine we see today.

 

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