Muryangsa, Mansusan

Quick facts

Address

203 Muryang-ro, Oesan-myeon, Buyeo-gun, Chungcheongnam-do

About this place

Muryangsa stands on Mansusan in Oesan-myeon, Buyeo, and is a branch temple of Magoksa, head temple of the sixth district of the Jogye Order. It is handed down that the national master Beomil, founder of the Sagulsan school among the Nine Mountain schools of Seon, established it, and that the master Muyeom, who opened the Seongjusan school, stayed here briefly. Neither the exact founding date, nor records of it, nor the later history are known. In the early Joseon period, under King Sejo, Kim Si-seup — well known as one of the six loyal subjects who lived — spent his last years here and died, and the monks of the temple built a portrait hall and enshrined his likeness. The Geungnakjeon, destroyed in the Japanese invasion of 1597, was rebuilt in 1633 and is designated a Treasure. Before it stand a stone lantern of the late Silla to early Goryeo period and a five-storey pagoda of the early Goryeo; a flagpole support stands before the temple gate, and Kim Si-seup’s stupa remains.

Origin and history

It is handed down that the national master Beomil, founder of the Sagulsan school among the Nine Mountain schools of Seon, established the temple, and that the master Muyeom, who opened the Seongjusan school, stayed here briefly. Neither the exact founding date, nor records of it, nor the later history are known.

In the early Joseon period, under King Sejo, Kim Si-seup spent his last years here and died; the monks of the temple built a portrait hall and enshrined his likeness.

The Geungnakjeon, destroyed in the Japanese invasion of 1597, was rebuilt in 1633 and is designated a Treasure. Before it stand a stone lantern of the late Silla to early Goryeo period and a five-storey pagoda of the early Goryeo; a flagpole support stands before the temple gate, and Kim Si-seup’s stupa remains.

What it is locally associated with

• Origin

  A founding not known

  Beomil is handed down as the founder, but the exact founding date, the records and the later history are all unknown.

  folk tradition

• Origin

  Kim Si-seup’s last years

  Kim Si-seup spent his last years here and died, and the monks built a portrait hall and enshrined his likeness.

  documented history

• What people do here

  The Geungnakjeon of 1633

  Destroyed in the invasion of 1597, the hall was rebuilt in 1633 and is designated a Treasure.

  documented history

This temple’s record says it does not know its own age. It hands down that Beomil founded it and that Muyeom stayed a while, and then states that the exact founding date, the records of it, and the later history are all unknown. Gapsa in the same province has three founding accounts; Gaesimsa has two incompatible dates inside one sentence of its own record. The temples of this province are poor at giving their own beginnings.

What is definite instead is one man’s ending. Kim Si-seup spent his last years here and died, and the monks built a portrait hall for his likeness. His stupa stands in the grounds.

That man appears once more on this site. Donghaksa in Gongju is where, in 1457, he raised an altar and held the rite for the six martyred ministers. The man who called the young dead closed his eyes at this temple in old age, and two Chungcheong pages divide the beginning and the end of one life between them.

The buildings, by contrast, have firm dates. The Geungnakjeon burned in the invasion of 1597 and was raised again in 1633.

Related guides

• How to visit a Korean templeHands together and hands folded, how the bows work, and what to do at the threshold of a hall. Starting with what is different from visiting a Japanese shrine.
• The small hall behind the main one — sansingak and samseonggakUphill from the main hall of a Korean temple stands a smaller one, and inside it an old man with a tiger. This is where the indigenous religion sits, inside the Buddhist institution.
• Templestay — a night at a templeA programme that puts you inside a temple’s own timetable for a day or two. What you do, which type to book, and what to be ready for.
• Prayer sites and the one wishThe three great Gwaneum sites, the five relic halls, and the crowds before the entrance exam. Where the saying about one wish comes from, and where the record stops.

Sources

1. 만수산 무량사(萬壽山 無量寺) — 한국민족문화대백과사전 (accessed 2026-08-16)