Founding ancestor of the Nampyeong Mun clan (Earl of Nampyeong)
| Era | 고려 초 (전승) |
| Clan | 남평 문씨 |
Mun Da-seong (文多省) is the figure handed down as the founding ancestor of the Nampyeong Mun clan. According to legend, a ruler took in and raised a child that emerged from a stone chest atop a great rock (Munam, 文巖) by the Jangja Pond in Nampyeong, Naju; being broadly gifted in letters and martial arts, the child took "Mun (文, letters)" as his surname and was named Da-seong (多省).
He is said to have been a military official who aided King Taejo Wang Geon of Goryeo, rising to Samjungdaegwang (三重大匡) and Merit Subject Painted on the Wall (byeoksang gongsin), and to have been enfeoffed as Earl of Nampyeong (南平伯). For this reason his descendants took Nampyeong as their ancestral seat. Because the era in the legend (the reign of King Gaero of Baekje) does not match the founding-merit-subject record, the clan's central council revised his period to the Later Three Kingdoms era.
According to the tradition in the Nampyeong Mun genealogy, an infant was found in a stone chest atop a rock beside Jangja Pond in the old Baekje county of Midongburi; he grew up taking Mun (文) as surname and Da-seong (多省) as given name. The 1731 Sinhaebo, the oldest genealogy, is introduced as recording this legend of the founder's birth and upbringing. The rock is handed down as Munbawi (Munam) in Nampyeong-eup, Naju.
The legend gives 472 (the 18th year of King Gaero of Baekje) as his birth year and says he lived to 98, but this does not fit the genealogy's record of him as a Goryeo founding merit subject and Earl of Nampyeong. The central clan association therefore revised his era to the Later Three Kingdoms. Some views hold that, since he does not appear in the Goryeosa and similar sources, he is probably a legendary figure. The genealogy gives his posthumous name as Museong (武成). It is best taken as tradition.
An altar is said to have been set up beside the Munbawi in Nampyeong-eup, Naju in 1993, with rites each year on 20 March, and he is enshrined at Jangyeon Seowon where Confucian scholars hold rites on the middle-ten-days day of the ninth month. Wikipedia lists the Munbawi as South Jeolla Folk Cultural Heritage No. 32. Schedules may change, so check before attending.
His descendants took Nampyeong as their ancestral seat and carried on the lineage.