백제 사비기의 사찰 조영과 정치적 함의

Abstract

The paper takes an in-depth study of Buddhist temple construction to understand how Buddhism interacted with real politics along with the social perception during Sabi period. This study focused on reviews which are good enough to grasp clues on the characteristics of the Sabi Buddhism, the temple construction process and the construction background yet some parts of these still remain unclear. Sabi Buddhism was extremely secular and was deeply penetrating in the real society. Not only royal households including kings but also ordinary people were affected by this. The most existing materials are from the royal capital area but a number of temples were constructed all over the places in Baekje during Sabi period not only in the royal capital area. The nation and royal households, central and local royal households and ordinary people constructed temples and Buddha statues. A wide range of social-stratifications participated in constructing Buddhist temples and this implies the characteristics of Baekje Buddhism during Sabi period with worldly desires and the spread of Buddhism at the national level. The Ahimsa principle during King Beop draws attention here. It is clear that there were different purposes and backgrounds for temple construction from a nation and a royal household, central and local royal households and ordinary people. The national level temple construction implies the political changes and certain political characteristics of those days. However royal households and ordinary people wished worldly blessings and afterlife. Temples during Sabi period were also constructed to solve political and social problems in the reality. It implies the close relation between Buddhism and politics from various extraordinary accidents at temples during the latter period of Baekje. The social power between the kingship and the royal authority is shown at Neung-sa and Jeseok-sa. Wangheung-sa implies the authenticity issues in kings’ blood line from King Sung, King Widuk, a dead prince and King Mu. Besides, the relation of dynamics between the local gentry whose representative was Princess Sunwha and the Sa clan whose power was Queen Sa oriented through Mireuk-sa. In other words, the temple construction process implies the political changes which are political power struggles between royal households and indicates compromises between the kingship and royal households and stands for the reinforced kings’ authority. Ohap-sa which was built in a local area shows the political relation between royal households and the central nation. These political characteristics of temples indicate various extraordinary accidents which are foreshadowing the fall of Baekje and temples might be the causes for the fall of Baekje