ABSTRACT
In the mean time, Japanese raids on Silla were again reaching dangerous proportions, and Munmu came to believe that if his body was cremated in 'the Indian manner', as recommended by Buddhist sages, and buried in an undersea tomb, he would become a dragonspirit of the Eastern Sea to defend his country from them. He died in 681 and his tomb, in a calm pool between the rocks of a small island just off the coast, is still marked by two great stone pagodas which are all that remain of Kamunsa, a temple on the shore that had been built with an open chamber below the floor to allow the dragon-spirit of the King to come in with the tide.
