Inwangsan Guksadang
The national shrine stood on Namsan from 1395 until 1925, when the Japanese colonial administration building its own shrine below objected to a Korean one standing higher, and had it taken down and rebuilt on the slope of Inwangsan. It is still in use. Mudang hold gut there, and the rock faces around it are worn smooth by people praying.
Field Guide Entry
Why it is on this mountain
Guksadang was founded in 1395, at the start of the Joseon dynasty, as the state shrine to Mongmyeok, the tutelary spirit of Namsan. It stayed there for more than five centuries.
In 1925 the Japanese colonial government was building the Chōsen Shrine on the slopes of Namsan and found it unacceptable that the Korean shrine sat above it. The building was dismantled and re-erected on Inwangsan, on the far side of the old city, where it has been ever since. Korea designated it National Folklore Cultural Property No. 28 on July 16, 1973.
What happens there
Mudang, who are mostly women, hold gut here: rituals of song, dance, costume, and spirit speech performed to settle a matter, for a household, a business, a marriage, an illness, or the dead. Food and drink are set out, drums and cymbals carry a long way down the mountain, and a ritual can run for hours.
These are private ceremonies paid for by the family who needs them, held in a public place. Whether you see one is a matter of the day you come.
The rocks
Above the shrine stands Seonbawi, a pair of weathered pillars read as robed figures, where women have come to pray for sons for generations. The rock around it carries candle soot, offerings tucked into crevices, and hollows worn by hands and foreheads.
Korean shamanism has never had official standing and has spent long periods being suppressed, by the Joseon court, by the colonial administration, and by modernization campaigns. It did not stop. A short walk above one of the wealthiest cities in the world, it is still going on.
Visiting Information
Free and open, reached on foot from Dongnimmun station in about 20 minutes, up a paved lane and then stone steps. The shrine sits below the Seonbawi rocks, and continuing up joins the Inwangsan ridge trail with the city laid out behind you.
If a ritual is under way, the courtesy is to stay outside the shrine, keep back from the offerings, and not photograph the participants or the food. Nobody will stop you watching from a distance, and a gut is loud enough that you will know before you arrive.
Early morning is the most active time. The mountain paths are steep in places and icy in winter, and the area around the shrine has small restaurants serving the people who come to pray.
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