In the early days of the Goryeo dynasty, the Seon’nong/Jeokjeon-dan institution was imported and introduced to the Goryeo people, as part of the government’s efforts to set up a Confucian tradition, against the Buddhist ones and also other native rituals indigenous to the Korean people at that time. At first, it was considered a foreign Chinese culture and was therefore not taken very seriously. Yet within the confines of Confucian ritual protocols, the King’s ceremonial gesture of cultivating a piece of land at the Jeokjeon site was acknowledged as a formal service dedicated to the God of the Land(地祇), and also as a counterpart practice to the Weon’gu Gigok ceremony.
Then, at the end of the Goryeo dynasty, Neo-Confucian teachings swept through the Korean peninsula, and governmental officials who were determined to spread Confucian-style ritual protocols throughout the country, once again set out to emphasize the Jeokjeon institution as a ceremony honoring the Land God, defining it as a memorial service that had to be conducted by no other than the King himself. They argued that such practice had actually been part of the Goryeo people’s timehonored tradition that had to be embraced and restored. Those arguments were designed to provide the practice with some legitimacy as part of a Goryeo set of customs, and let people not see it as a mere alien custom.
As an extension of such efforts, in the early days of Joseon, the Jeokjeon practice (along with other services that were to be held at the National Shrine) continued to be recognized as a ritual ceremony that would have to be observed by the King himself. Yet before long, some changes were made to the institution itself. The Weon’gu-rye protocol was abolished, and the entire service system that had been based upon the ‘Monthly Obligations(“月令”),’ which included a sequence connecting the Weon’gu Gigok stage and the Jeokjeon-Chin’gyeong(King’s cultivation of a piece of land at the Jeokjeon site) stage, had to change accordingly. A new justification for the requirement of the King to perform the Jeokjeon-Chin’gyeong practice himself had to be delivered. At the same time, the King was not able to frequently indulge himself in a Chin’gyeong/親耕event as he had to oversee the governing of the entire country, so the meaning of the Jeokjeon institution was to be considerably weakened and thus limited.
A few years later, during the latter half of King Taejong’s reign, the overall ritual protocol system was modified to be based upon a principle of honoring a deity harboring auspicious powers and good luck(“功德”). In the process, the Seon’nong/先農entity emerged as a particularly important figure and was separated from the Jeokjeon practice. Since the era of King Sejong, Jeokjeon became a test bed for agricultural initiatives and experiments, such as cultivation of plants, distribution of seeds, and simulations for the deployment of the ‘land-class’ system. It became another symbol of the government’s will to promote and support agricultural production.