CultureAD 600

Yi Mun-jin compiles the Sinjip

Under King Yeongyang, the Taehak scholar Yi Mun-jin condensed the 100-volume Yugi, Goguryeo’s early history, into the five-volume Sinjip.

The Samguk sagi records that in 600, the 11th year of King Yeongyang, the Taehak scholar Yi Mun-jin was ordered to abridge the old history into the five-volume Sinjip. When writing was first used early in the kingdom, someone had recorded events in 100 volumes called the Yugi; the Sinjip condensed it.

Neither the Yugi nor the Sinjip survives. Compiled as the wars with Sui began (598), the Sinjip is seen as an effort to set the kingdom’s past in order and strengthen royal authority and unity.

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States and rulers at the time: Goguryeo — King Yeongyang

People

King YeongyangAD 618
monarch · Twenty-sixth king of Goguryeo, who struck Liaoxi and repelled the Sui invasions
Yi Mun-jin
author · Goguryeo scholar of the Taehak under King Yeongyang who condensed the 100-volume Yugi into the five-volume Sinjip

Before and after

Earlier: AD 600 Rock-carved Buddha Triad, Yonghyeon-ri, Seosan
Later: AD 608 Wongwang’s Plea for Troops

Themes that include this event

Writing Korean HistoryAD 375 – 1931
From the Seogi, Guksa and Sinjip to the Joseon sanggosa — history-writing as royal display, Confucian record, assertion of independence and nationalist scholarship