Home > Seosan

This article is about the Korean monk Seosan. For the city in South Chungcheong Province, see Seosan City.

Little is known of the early life of Seosan other than that he was born in 1520 and that he became a monk. As was common for monks in this time, he travelled from place to place, living in a succession of monasteries. Buddhist monks had been forced to keep a low profile since General Yi Seonggye had been forced to eject Buddhism from its state of total permeation of government, in order to gain the support of Neo-Confucian scholar-officials to consolidate his position against his Buddhist political opponents when he overthrew King Gongyang in 1392 to become King Taejo of Joseon.

Before ever having tested his hand as a military commander, Seosan was a first-rate Seon ( KoreanKorean is: A person from or something related to Korea. See Koreans and List of Koreans. The Korean language. Buddhism) master and the author of a number of important religious texts, the most important of which is probably his "Seon gugam", a guide to Seon practice which is studied by Korean monks even today. Like most monks of the Joseon period, Seosan had been initially educated in Neo-Confucian philosophy. Dissatisfied, though, he wandered through the mountain monasteries. Later, after making a name for himself as a teacher, he was made arbiter of the Seon school by King Myeongjeong , who was sympathetic towards Buddhism. He soon resigned from this responsibility, though, returning to the itinerant life, advancing his Seon studies and teaching at monasteries all around Korea.

The mountains where the monasteries were located were dangerous, and so the monks had to learn to defend themselves. Seosan recognised that the development of armour made striking and kicking much less effective, but he also noticed that wherever the armour bends, so does the body. He saw that by manipulation of these joints one could defeat an armoured opponent on the battlefield. He also applied this same principle to the use of a rope or belt as a weapon, which he discovered can be wrapped around the body of your attacker, trapping weapons and, when necessary, breaking joints as it wraps. It was used by Seosan and the soldiers he trained to immobilise, carry and even kill their opponents. Wrapped around the mouth and nose the rope would prevent the opponent from breathing, bringing about unconsciousness and allowing them to be taken as a prisoner. Many of these techniques were adopted and developed to give birth to the modern art of HapkidoHapkido is a Korean martial art. The name means literally "joining-energy-way" and can be rendered as "the way of co-ordinating energy". History Hapkido history is rather confused, but Korean sources attribute it to two Koreans, Choi Yong Sul and Ji Han J.

At the beginning of the 1590sCenturies: 15th century 16th century 17th century Decades: 1540s 1550s 1560s 1570s 1580s 1590s 1600s 1610s 1620s 1630s 1640s Years: 1590 1591 1592 1593 1594 1595 1596 1597 1598 1599 Events and Trends 1590s., JapanJapan (, Nippon/Nihon literally "the origin of the sun") is a country in East Asia situated on a chain of islands east of the Asian continent on the western edge of the Pacific Ocean. The largest of these islands are, from north to south, Hokkaido , Honshese Shogun Toyotomi HideyoshiToyotomi Hideyoshi (; 1536 September 18, 1598), was a Japanese general who united Japan. He succeeded his former liege, Oda Nobunaga. Later, he invaded Korea. He is known for a number of cultural legacies, including the restriction that only members of th, after stabilising Japan during this era of warring nations, made preparations for a large scale invasion of Joseon. Joseon was unaware of the situation in Japan, however, and was unprepared for the Japanese aggression. In 1592Events January 30 The death of Pope Innocent IX during the previous year had left the Papal throne vacant. Ippolito Aldobrandini is elected Pope Clement VIII. Founding of Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland's oldest university Thomas Kyd publishes The Spanis, after rebuffing Japan’s request for aid in conquering ChinaThis article is on the geographic and cultural entity. For other meanings, see China (disambiguation). China ( Traditional Chinese: , Simplified Chinese: , Hanyu Pinyin: Zhongguo, Wade-Giles: Chung-kuo) is a country in continental East Asia with some oute, approximately 200,000 Japanese soldiers invaded Joseon, and the Waeran (Japanese War) began. At the beginning of the invasion, King Seonjo fled the capital, leaving a weak, poorly-trained army to defend the country. In desperation he called on Seosan to organise monks into guerilla units. Even at 73 years of age he managed to recruit and deploy some 5,000 of these warrior monks, who enjoyed some instrumental successes.

At first, the government armies of Joseon suffered repeated defeats, and the Japanese armies marched north up to P'yongyangP'yongyang Directly Governed City Korean Name McCune-ReischauerP'yongyang Chik'alshi Revised RomanizationPyeongyang Jikhalsi Hangul Hanja Short NameP'yongyang (Pyeongyang;; ) Statistics Population2,741,260 ( 1993) Area? GovernmentSpecial City;Capital of N and the Hamgyong provinces. At sea, however, the Joseon navy, under the command of Admiral Yi Sun-sin, enjoyed successive victories. Throughout the country, loyal volunteer armies formed and fought against the Japanese together with the warrior monks and the government armies of Joseon.

The presence of Seosan's monks' army, operating out of the Heungguksa temple deep in the mountain of Yeongchwi-san , was a critical factor in the eventual expulsion of the Japanese invaders in 1593 and again in 1598.