The “Mountain Spirit” (山神) is worshipped in Korean folk religiosity as a deity protecting and governing mountains. Depictions of this spirit are usually found in Buddhist temples, often in a separate shrine on the temple precincts. In particular, the layity prayed to the Mountain Spirit for children, good health and longevity. The mountain spirit was held to control good and bad fortune. However, the Japanese invasions (1592-1598) and the Manchu invasion (1636) brought significant social and economic changes. Thereafter, in the late Joseon-Dynasty period, lay religiousity gained a more eminent role in Korean Buddhism, and the Mountain Spirit came to be venerated in a separate “Mountain-Deity Shrine (sansin-gak, 山神閣), typically located behind the main hall of a Buddhist temple, featuring a painting, statue, or wood relief of the deity. A painting of the Mountain Spirit is often venereated inside the main hall, both in temples that have a separate sansin-gak and in those that don’t. In the elements of the Buddhist Mountain Spirit depictions, court painting elements coexist with folk temple painting elements, an especially about in symbols for longevity without illness. Traditional Buddhist paintings are based on the descriptions of the deities in sutras or treatises, often reproducing former paintings. Mountain-Spirit depictions, however, express the artist’s individual creativity in composition, color, symbols and arrangement. The miraculous and powerful Mountain Spirit appears as a sage-like figure sitting on a wide rock in a deep mountain valley, often a compained by a tamed tiger. The Mountain Spirit and his child attendants usually hold auspicious symbols such as peaches, peonies, and herbs of immortality. However, there are also unique examples where ginseng is held. Ginseng, symbolizing longevity and health, is believed to be granted by the Mountain Spirit to wild ginseng diggers and is considered a quintessential Korean elixir of longevity. In this article, the 13 Mountain Spirit paintings showing ginseng have been identified. Among them, four depict an attendant child holding ginseng, four portray the Mountain Spirit holding ginseng, and four represent the Mountain Spirit holding a mountain spirit statue. As for the depiction of the Mountain Spirit figure, there is one painting of a female Mountain Spirit, two of a Mountain Spirit married couple, and one depicting the Mountain Spirit in the form of a celestial maiden. The remaining nine paintings depict the Mountain Spirit in his usual male form.

Keywords: Ginseng, Mountain spirit worship, Buddhist religious customs, Sansin-gak, Buddhist mountain spirit painting