ŬISANG (625–702), also known as the National Master Taesŏng Wŏn'gyo; founder of the Hwaŏm (Chin., Huayan) school of Korean Buddhism. Ŭisang, one of the most important scholiasts of the Unified Silla period (688–935), helped to forge the doctrinal perspectives that would become characteristic of the mature Korean Buddhist tradition.

Ordained as a monk at the age of twenty-nine at Hwangbok monastery in the Silla capital of Kyŏngju, he soon afterward decided to travel to Tang China together with his friend Wŏnhyo (617–686) to study under Chinese masters. As Ŭisang's biography relates, on their first trip in 650 (during the unification wars that were then raging between the three kingdoms of early Korea) the two pilgrims were arrested for espionage in the Liaodong area by Koguryŏ border guards and were only repatriated after several weeks of incarceration. In 661 they tried again, this time traveling...