Mandongmyo Monument Stele

The monument stele is a stone tablet erected in front of a Confucian academy, recording the purpose of its establishment and praising the figures enshrined there. This stele is located at the Mandongmyo shrine, which holds ancestral rites for Emperor Shenzong and Emperor Yizong of China's Ming Dynasty, who aided Korea during the Japanese invasions of Korea (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 the rites at Mandongmyo and arrested Confucian scholars who opposed this. The scholars secretly continued the rites by organizing a spring and autumn ritual society. In 1937, the Japanese arrested them, burned the spirit tablets and ritual implements, and damaged the monument stele by chiseling it. In 1942, they burned down the building and buried the monument stele underground. After liberation, the stele, which had been buried since 1942, was recovered and re-erected.