Note 2 — KOREAN BUDDHISM: HISTORY

Jones in his admirable discussion of the Eunjin miriok makes an interesting suggestion regarding its location:

But the special interest these facts have for us in connection with the great Buddha lies in the fact that it may have been here that Buddhism itself first entered Pakche. Buddhism was a foreign importation, being sent to the peninsular kingdoms by the Eastern Tsin dynasty of China (A.D. 317-19) and effecting an entrance almost simultaneously at two points—in the north into Koguryu and in the south into Pakche. Of this latter event the native historians tell us:—“In the year A.D. 384 the barbarian monk Maranant’a came from Tsin. King Chip-yu accorded him a most courteous and ceremonious reception and Buddhism was established as the national religion.” We do not know at what point the monk-missionary landed, but it is not so unlikely that he may have come to this well-known port, and that one day among the ships making up that inextricable mass of masts and rudders at Si-jin there may have come the imperial junk of Tsin bearing “the barbarian monk Maranant’a” with his images, incense, bells, books and vestments to plant in Korea that cult which was to dominate the people for a thousand years, thus landing close to the place where in later years the greatest monument that Buddhism possesses was to stand. And two hundred years later (A.D. 552) there probably embarked from this port that band of Pakche priests sent by their king to carry to the mikado of Japan the golden images of Buddha and the triad of precious ones, the sutras and sacred books, and to give the faith of Buddhism to the Sun-rise Empire. And it is said that these relics exist to this day and are preserved in the city of Nagano in Japan. Colossal Buddha: p. 62.