장서각본 『陰騭文註解』에 나타난 사상과 윤리

Abstract

The Yinzhiwenzhujie (陰騭文註解) is a Religio-ethical tract of religious Taoism, which, in spite of its popularity all over the late Joseon Dynasty (朝鮮), has not as yet, so far as we know, been introduced to the academic world in Contemporary Korea. In this book the god’s identity as Wenchangdijun (文昌帝君) and role in the official Taoist canon was formally recognized by the Yuan (元) China. and the deity of Wenchang maintained through most of late imperial China and late Joseon Korea. Yinzhiwenzhujie is a sort of Shunshu (善書) which has been used in China and Korea since the Song (宋) dynasty to refer to a variety of works with the pronounced didactic intent to exhort people to practice virtue and eschew evil. According to Yinzhiwenzhujie, the human nature is most intelligent and its nature is intrinsically good. All our moral relations and daily actions have their reasons why they should be so. When Heaven above created these things it mysteriously endowed them with something to guide them, and this something appears when the people practices goodness. This book have some form of belief in the law of cause and effect, that is, the cosmic process of retribution by which good and bad actions have consequences for this life, subsequent lives, and even the lives of the one’s descendants. Yinzhiwenzhujie as morality book was a vehicle for dissemination of Taoist internal and external cosmological ideas and moral retribution in late Joseon Dynasty.