From the Hyangga(향가) of Silla to the Landscape Culture of the Joseon Dynasty: 1,400 Years of Wisdom on the View of Nature
“Climbing a mountain and looking at the water below”, this was more than just appreciating the beauty of nature. This was all about reading the order of the universe and comprehending the basic tenets of life. With the world facing threats from climate change, destruction of ecology and depletion of resources, it’s clear that environmental dangers to the entire global ecosystem have become hard to ignore. In this respect, the ways Korean literature and culture have imagined the relationship between people and nature offer perspectives worth revisiting.
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Silla: Ritual, Landscape, and Cosmic Order
Visitors can find interpretive materials for Hyangga (향가), the poetic songs of the Silla Dynasty, at the National Museum of Korea. The “Dosolga” (Song of Tusita), composed by the monk Wolmyeongsa in 760 CE, is one of the surviving Hyangga, a genre regarded as the oldest form of Korean lyric poetry. According to Samguk Yusa, two suns appeared in the sky during the reign of King Gyeongdeok and did not disappear for ten days. Wolmyeongsa was summoned to perform a Buddhist ritual, and he sang the Dosolga while scattering flowers to invite Maitreya, after which the phenomenon is said to have ended (Iryeon, Samguk Yusa, vol. 5; Yun, 1995). Scholars have read the episode in terms of Buddhist ritual, political authority, and the belief that disorder in the heavens reflected disorder on earth (Yun, 1995; [Author of a thesis at Sookmyung Women's University], Studies in Korean Poetry, Vol. 52). The poem itself is brief: it calls on the scattered flowers, sent forth by a “straight heart,” to serve Maitreya. One possible environmental reading starts here. Faced with an alarming change in the natural order, the response is not to master the sky but to convert balance through ritual and sincerity, with flowers, a natural offering, as the medium.
Mountains and rivers were also central to the Hwarang, whose practice of Yuosansu (遊娛山水), wandering and enjoying mountains and rivers, is recorded in historical sources (Kim Bu-sik, Samguk Sagi, 1145/trans. Lee). The young warriors of Silla used to traverse the country’s mountainous regions and rivers in their training sessions. They used to wander around famous places while gaining knowledge about geography as well as building up their physical prowess, intellectual capabilities, and sense of brotherhood. Historical accounts reveal that Hwarang would travel through the mountains and fields in order to develop a great sense of magnanimity and wisdom. These journeys were tied to religious rites at sacred mountains, to building group solidarity, and to preparing young men for service to the state (World History Encyclopedia, 2016). Their purpose was not conservation, but the practice shows a culture in which landscapes carried religious and moral meaning, a precondition for treating them as something more than resources.
Goryeo: An Aesthetic of Harmony Between Nature and Craft
In the Goryeo period, the relationship with nature found expression above all in craft. The Goryeo Celadon Museum in Gangjin in the province of South Jeolla showcases some of the finest works of Goryeo celadon, which is considered one of the greatest artistic accomplishments of the dynasty. Goryeo celadon began under the influence of Chinese wares, particularly Yue ware, but Goryeo potters developed a distinctive jade-green glaze, admired by the Song envoy Xu Jing in 1123, and the original inlay technique known as sanggam (Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.d.).
The motifs found on celadon ware are largely inspired by nature, as exemplified by such figures as cranes, clouds, willows, and waterfowl, all created in inlaid designs, which shows that there was an appreciation of nature not just as it was, but as an idealized form (Smarthistory, n.d.).
Joseon: Reading Philosophy in the Landscape
With the adoption of Neo-Confucianism in the Joseon Dynasty, philosophical reflection on nature deepened further. Mountains and rivers in sijo poetry, classical Chinese verse, and landscape paintings became settings for moral cultivation and self-reflection. Yun Seon-do’s “Song of Five Friends” (Ougo, 1642), for instance, praises water, stone, pine, bamboo, and the moon as companions whose constancy models human virtue (Literature Translation Institute of Korea, n.d.). Rugged peaks symbolized steadfastness and perseverance, while flowing water represented constant learning and the passage of time.
Scholars of the period also developed geographical and practical perspectives on settlement, as seen in Yi Jung-hwan’s Taekriji, written in 1751. This comprehensive geographic treatise examined how land, climate, and human character interact. Yi proposed four essential criteria for selecting an ideal place to live: geography (topography and natural features), livelihood potential, human spirit, and natural scenery (Yoon, 1996). Yi argued that beautiful scenery alone could not make a place livable: land also had to support a livelihood through fertile soil and access to trade routes, and its topography had to be judged for practical conditions (Lee Ki-hwan, 2018). The criteria were practical rather than environmentalist, but they amount to an early insistence that where people settle must answer to the land’s real limits.
Particularly notable was the balance Joseon scholars maintained between seclusion in nature and active participation in public service. They would retreat to natural settings to pursue scholarship and spiritual cultivation, then return to civic life to apply their learning.
Folk Traditions: A Daily Dialogue with Nature
Reflection on nature was not limited to the intellectual elite. Village forests offer a clear example of practices whose motives and effects differ. Bibo forests (裨補林) were planted according to geomantic principles to correct perceived weaknesses in a site’s landscape, while Dangsan forests (당산숲) were sacred groves tied to village guardian spirits and communal rites. Their purpose was religious and geomantic, yet because cutting them was taboo, many survived for centuries and came to serve as windbreaks, flood barriers, and habitats (Choi, 2009; Choi & Kim, 2007).
Seasonal customs reflected the rhythms of farming life: Jeongwol Daeboreum, the first full moon of the lunar year, was a time to pray for a good harvest and ward off misfortune, while Chuseok gave thanks to ancestors for the harvest. Farming practices aligned with the 24 solar terms reflected close knowledge of seasonal cycles, which agricultural life demanded.
Shared Responsibility for Shared Order: The Key Concept of “Harmony” (調和)
Harmony recurs as a theme across these periods, but it meant different things in each. In Silla, it took the form of ritual: when the heavens fell into disorder, as in the Dosolga episode, the response was to restore balance through prayer and a sincere mind rather than to master nature by force. In Joseon Neo-Confucianism, harmony was a matter of moral self-cultivation, with mountains and water serving as models of constancy and continuous learning. In village life, it appeared as geomantic balance, as communities planted and protected forests to correct perceived weaknesses in their surroundings.
Similarity between these traditions does not lie in a constant philosophy, but in a common presupposition that human beings exist in a wider scheme of things, and their choices should respond to this scheme. None of them was designed as environmental policy. Their motives were religious, moral, geomantic, or practical. Yet some of the habits they produced, such as protecting sacred groves for generations or judging a place to live by its terrain and not only its beauty, turned out to have lasting ecological value.
From Principle to Practice
There are two principles that translate into concrete decisions today.
The first comes from Yi Jung-hwan’s Taekriji. Yi insisted that a good place to live must be judged by its terrain and its capacity to support a livelihood, not by scenery alone. Given that there is a growing risk of floods and landslides today, there would be no sense in constructing any kind of buildings in areas where there is the risk of flooding and in landslide-prone areas (IPCC, 2021).
The second comes from Korea’s village forests. Bibo and Dangsan forests were protected for religious and geomantic reasons. As noted above, these forests outlasted their original purpose and came to provide real ecological protection. Such history justifies two policies of today: planting windbreaks and coastal forests as natural climate adaptation, and designating communities’ protected forests as conservation areas, which may contribute to the international target of protecting 30 percent of the land by 2030 (Convention on Biological Diversity [CBD], 2022).
Conclusion
As much as scholars and environmental groups agree that the problems of climate change and loss of biodiversity can be overcome not simply through individual goodwill but also through institutional efforts and change in valuation of nature, Korean classics cannot provide immediate solutions to the issues at hand (IPBES, 2024). What they offer is a set of tested habits of thought: that where we build should answer to the land’s limits, that protected landscapes can serve communities across generations, and that a disturbance in nature calls for restoring balance rather than asserting control. Applied through planning laws and conservation policy, these old principles can still inform the choices we make today.
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