Eunjeoksa, Apsan

Temple · Daegu

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In short

Built at the cave where Wang Geon hid for three days, and named with the characters for hiding and for traces.

A watercolour of a temple hall at the foot of a forested hill, with bamboo to one side and the mouth of a small cave in the rock behind. — AI-generated illustration

Quick facts

Address: 574-120 Apsansunhwan-ro, Nam-gu, Daegu

About this place

Eunjeoksa stands on Apsan in Nam-gu, Daegu, and was founded in 926. Its name is bound up with Wang Geon, founder of Goryeo. In the late Silla period, when Gyeon Hwon of Later Baekje invaded Silla, King Gyeongae of Silla asked Wang Geon for help; Wang Geon came to Daegu with relief troops and, heading toward Donghwasa on Palgongsan, was surrounded by Gyeon Hwon’s army at the foot of Wangsan and faced annihilation. Escaping by Sin Sung-gyeom’s stratagem, he went through the woods of Wangsan, came down from Yeomburam on Palgongsan, passed the battlefield of Pagunjae and then Haean-myeon, Banyawol and Ansim, and hid in a natural cave in the bamboo to the right of the present main hall of Eunjeoksa. He stayed three days in that cave, rested three months where Anilsa now stands, and withdrew by way of Hwangaksan in Gimcheon to Cheorwon. Having later taken the throne, he ordered the master Yeongjo to build a temple at the place of the cave that had let him escape danger during those three days, naming it Eunjeoksa with the characters for hiding and for traces.

Origin and history

Eunjeoksa was founded in 926, and its name is bound up with Wang Geon, founder of Goryeo.

In the late Silla period, when Gyeon Hwon of Later Baekje invaded Silla, King Gyeongae asked Wang Geon for help. Wang Geon came to Daegu with relief troops and, heading toward Donghwasa on Palgongsan, was surrounded by Gyeon Hwon’s army at the foot of Wangsan and faced annihilation.

Escaping by Sin Sung-gyeom’s stratagem, he went through the woods of Wangsan, came down from Yeomburam on Palgongsan, passed the battlefield of Pagunjae and then Haean-myeon, Banyawol and Ansim, and hid in a natural cave in the bamboo to the right of the present main hall. He stayed three days there, rested three months where Anilsa now stands, and withdrew by way of Hwangaksan in Gimcheon to Cheorwon.

Having later taken the throne, he ordered the master Yeongjo to build a temple at the place of that cave, naming it Eunjeoksa with the characters for hiding and for traces.

What it is locally associated with

Origin
The cave of three days
Having escaped, Wang Geon hid in a natural cave in the bamboo to the right of the present main hall and stayed three days.
folk tradition
Origin
Two characters made into a name
On taking the throne he ordered the master Yeongjo to build a temple at that cave and name it with the characters for hiding and for traces.
folk tradition
What people do here
A retreat written down
The account traces the route through Wangsan, Yeomburam, Pagunjae, Haean-myeon, Banyawol and Ansim to the cave, then three months at Anilsa and a withdrawal to Cheorwon.
folk tradition

This temple’s name is the event set down directly: the character for hiding and the character for traces. A temple was built where Wang Geon had concealed himself for three days, and words meaning concealment were taken as its name.

What survives is not only the name but the route. From the woods of Wangsan to Yeomburam, past Pagunjae and through Haean-myeon, Banyawol and Ansim to this cave; then three months where Anilsa stands, then by Hwangaksan in Gimcheon to Cheorwon. The place names a fleeing man passed through are written down in order.

Daegu’s temples return again and again to hiding and moving. Buinsa on Palgongsan lost in 1232 the Tripitaka woodblocks brought there to escape invasions from the north; the relics at Yongyeonsa went to Myohyangsan to escape a war and were divided on the way back; at Bukjijangsa a building’s true name lay concealed in its own ridge-beam record for more than two hundred and fifty years. Here it was a person who hid.

The cave, the record says, is still there in the bamboo to the right of the main hall.

Claims and evidence levels 2

Wang Geon is held to have hidden three days in a cave here after escaping encirclement by Gyeon Hwon’s army. folk tradition
On taking the throne he had a temple built at that place, named with the characters for hiding and for traces. folk tradition

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