Temple story · Traditional attribution
Seonmyo and the Floating Rock
Zanning, Song gaoseng zhuan
Song gaoseng zhuan (Song Biographies of Eminent Monks), fascicle 4: 'Biography of Uisang of Silla'
The Seonmyo dragon worked a great wonder in the sky, turning into a huge rock a li long and a li wide that covered the top of the monastery, as if about to fall yet not falling.
According to Zanning's Song gaoseng zhuan, when Uisang went to Tang China and stayed at the house of a lay believer in Dengzhou, a young woman of the house named Seonmyo tried to win him, but his heart was a stone that could not be moved. Seonmyo then turned her own heart to the Way and vowed that in life after life she would take refuge in him and, as his patron, provide whatever he needed. Years later, when the ship carrying Uisang home had already pulled away, she threw the box of robes and other things she had prepared for him into the waves, and the wind carried it onto the ship; then, vowing to become a great dragon and guard the ship, she threw herself into the sea, the story goes. Back in Silla, when Uisang found a place fit for spreading the Hwaeom (Flower Garland) teaching, some five hundred monks of another school had gathered there, it is said. The Seonmyo dragon, which always followed to protect him, turned into a huge rock hovering over the monastery as if about to fall; the monks scattered in fright, and Uisang went on to teach the Flower Garland Sutra there. Zanning does not name the temple, but the story has come down as the origin of the name Buseoksa, 'Floating Rock Temple,' so look behind Muryangsujeon Hall for the rock called Buseok, said to be the very rock the Seonmyo dragon became, and for Seonmyogak, the shrine that holds Seonmyo's portrait.