Background
Sol Ch'ong, whose literary appellation was Pingwoldang (Ice Moon Hall), came from the Sol clan of Kyongju, the capital of ancient Silla. By the time Kim Pusik included Sol Ch'ong's biography in his History of the Three Kingdoms in the 13th century, much information concerning Sol Ch'ong's career had been lost. Silla had a strong caste system called Bone Ranks, and Sol came from one of the eminent families. His grandfather had held high office in the government before Silla unified the Korean peninsula, and his father, Wonhyo, was an eminent monk in this predominantly Buddhist kingdom. Wonhyo married a royal princess who gave birth to Sol Ch'ong. Wonhyo is known to have written at least 12 volumes on Buddhism and was considered one of the Ten Buddhist Saints of Silla. Together with the monk Ubreveisang, he founded the Pomosa Temple, which stands near Pusan today.
Career
Sol Ch'ong rose to high position in the National Academy, where his principal duties involved translating dispatches into Chinese for the King. As one of the three most famous Confucian scholars in Silla-Kang Su and Ch'oe Chiwon were the others-Sol lectured on the Confucian classics in the Korean vernacular. Inasmuch as Korea had come under Chinese influence long before the Christian era and before the Koreans developed a means of writing their language, Chinese was utilized to record ideas and transact business. Sol Ch'ong was reputed to have invented idu, a system which enabled Koreans to write noun and verb inflections used in their language between Chinese characters to render Chinese into Korean grammar. In a similar manner, pure Korean words could be written by using Chinese characters for their phonetic values. However, the existence of the Royal Tour Monuments, erected on North Han Mountain in the reign of King Chinhubreveng (reigned 540-575) and inscribed in idu, indicates that the system originated much before Sol's birth.
