Seokga

The contest

In the Changse-ga recorded in 1923 from the shaman Kim Ssang-dori, Seokga appears after Mireuk has ordered the world and demands to rule it. Mireuk proposes contests. In the first, each lowers a bottle into the East Sea, Mireuk on a golden cord and Seokga on a silver one; Seokga's cord breaks. In the second, each tries to freeze a river in summer; again Mireuk succeeds. In the last, they agree to lie down and sleep, and the one on whose knee a flower blooms will rule. A flower blooms on Mireuk's knee; Seokga, only pretending to sleep, breaks it off and puts it on his own.

The curse

Waking, Mireuk knows what has happened and yields the world, but curses Seokga's age: because it was won by theft, the world will be full of cheats, thieves, and misery, and its flowers will quickly wither. Seokga then begins his rule; in the song he goes hunting with his followers, some of whom refuse to eat the meat and turn into rocks and pine trees.

A shamanic, not Buddhist, story

Although Seokga bears the Buddha's name, the song is not Buddhist doctrine; it uses the names of the present Buddha and the future Buddha for the rulers of the present, flawed age and the lost first age. A similar flower-growing contest between twin brothers, Daebyeol-wang and Sobyeol-wang, appears in the Jeju creation myth Cheonjiwang bonpuri, suggesting a shared Korean shamanic motif.