Mandongmyo Stele

A stele erected in front of a Confucian academy to record the purpose of its establishment and praise the enshrined figures. This stele is located at Mandongmyo Shrine, which holds ancestral rites for Emperor Shenzong and Emperor Yizong of China's Ming Dynasty, who aided Korea during the Imjin War.

Mandongmyo was built in the 30th year of King Sukjong's reign (1704), 60 years after the death of Ming Emperor Yizong, by Suam Kwon Sang-ha following the teachings of Uam Song Si-yeol. After the Gyeongsul National Humiliation (1910), in 1917, the Japanese colonial authorities banned rites at Mandongmyo and arrested Confucian scholars who opposed this. The scholars secretly held rites through an organization called Chunchugye. In 1937, the Japanese arrested them, burned the spirit tablets and ritual implements, and damaged the stele by chiseling it. In 1942, they burned down the building and buried the stele. After liberation, the stele was recovered from its burial site and re-erected.