鶴皐 金履萬의 寺庵 탐방과 불교인식

Abstract

Kim Ee-man was a Confucian scholar and government officer belonging to the Namin School (南人系) during the middle and late 18th century. Since the Noron School (老論系) was reinforcing their political hegemony on Joseon (朝鮮) society at the time, Kim Ee-man had to adjust his life direction to accommodate the ripple effect of political party strife. Kim Ee-man traveled famous mountains and scenic spots since his middle age while devoting his time on poetry and prose composition; because he wanted to relieve the political victim mentality and the accompanying trauma he should undertake as a government officer belonging to Namin School. As Kim Ee-man toured whole country, he visited many Buddhist temples and hermitages. He naturally became to have deep understanding in Buddhistpriesthoodcommunity (僧團), Buddhist monks and Buddhist teaching system. Of course, since Kim Ee-man was an essential Confucian, he regarded Buddhism as a heresy and strongly criticized the unproductiveness and consumptive propensity of Buddhist priesthood community and denied the punitive justice theory (因果應報說), which is a representative Buddhist dogma. However, Kim Ee-man also introduced a perspective, in which the substantiality of secular fame, wealth and high position is extricated based on the ‘fantasy and empty perception’ (幻·空觀), which is the framework in Buddhist deconstructionism. Kim Ee-man also cognized eternity (永遠性)accompanying temporality (時間性) as disjoints (分節) and practiced Buddhist asceticism in person. These facts imply that Kim Ee-man received healing on his trauma from Buddhism though he had ambivalent attitude toward Buddhism.