고구려 고분벽화의 도교와 유교적 신화 도상 분석

Abstract

Although Koguryo mural paintings have lots of Taoist matter except for several Buddhist mural tombs, the studies in view of Taoism are rare in recent Korean studies. At this article, I have an effort to show the meaning and data about Taosit and mythic subjects from mural paintings. Koguryian people considered the ceiling space as a mythic sky, they represented the heavenly host stars, many mythic birds, odd animals and mystical plants, so on. I would like to say the tendency like this was placed in Taoist Bi-sun, namely flying sunnism, which is a Taoist ideal character not dying, flying on the sky. I divide mural imgaes into several morphological classes as follows： the god-human binding type like demigod, anomalous type transformed from actual animal, meaning mythifying type and specialized mythic characters. When I classify the mythic painting images in the view of subject or function, there are civilization deity, mythic strong man, gate guardian deity, safe-guard deity, repulsing wicked deity, medicine deity, long life deity, property and fortune deity, recital deity and mystic decoration pattern, constellation myth of four direction, and os on. Moreover, there are other Confucian mythic animals like the unicorn with virtue politics and golden drag- on with sacred king myth. The studies above are expected to deepen the Taoist aspects about Koguryo mural paintings.