몽골구비문학에 나타난 죽음관 - 신화, 영웅서사시를 중심으로 -

Abstract

Mongolian people’s view of death, namely, the awareness and the emotion about death that Mongolian nomads had held for a long time, and the philosophical ideology are minutely reflected within the texts of Mongolian mythology and heroic epics. First of all, in the Mongolian creation myth, the origin of human life and death is being considered to have been formed simultaneously with the creation of a human being. In the meantime, a cause that a human being came to face death is being introduced with two types such as what lifespan had been fixed from the time of creation in a human being, and as another thing saying that a human being came to be unable to have eternal life by a negative creator deity. Also, heaven becomes a source of a human being as well. A human being is the creation of the heaven. Thus, what a person’s ascending to heaven after being dead is being understood as what a human being returns to the original place. Through this view of death, the Mongolian nomads’ method and thinking of traditional life can be confirmed as saying that a human being comes back to Mother Nature in the wake of making the unified life with Mother Nature. Moreover, a Mongolian’s view of soul is characterized by what many spirits exist in a person. These souls ever exist outside the body in the form of animal and plant. It is being believed that the master of soul comes to be finally dead completely only when these are dead. This idea can be estimated to have been reflected Mongolian people’s wish for extending the given lifespan or overcoming death through the external soul.