신라의 왕경 오악과 (소)금강산

Abstract

From the time of the Kingdom’s foundation, the Silla people deified the six mountains around the capital, to which the founders of the six tribes came down from the heaven. However, since the ebb and flow of the six tribes and the new rise of the Seok tribe, and due to the influence of the four directions idea, the belief on the six mountains turned into the one about four mountains. During the reign of Queen Seondeok(善德女王), the Buddhist belief of five mountains was introduced to the Kingdom and it caused the five mountains belief in the capital with the Nangsan mountain as its center Trāyastriṃśa(忉利天). The northern mountain Geumgangsan(金剛山) was originally called Geumsan(金山) and it was where the leader of Geumsangari tribe was descended from the heaven. But after the introduction of Buddhism in the Kingdom, it was re-named after the representative Buddhist sutra Geumganggyeong(金剛經, the Diamond Sutra) and was regarded as a sacred place in connection with Yi Cha-don. The Tohamsan mountain in the east, Dorisan mountain in the west, and Namsan mountain in the south were also recognized as a sacred ground. Through the medium of the belief, the capital surrounded by the five mountains became a holy place. This belief on the capital was devised to strengthen the bone rank system by discriminating the capital dwellers from the rest of the people. But the unification of the Three Kingdoms by Silla during the reigns of Queen Seondeok and King Munmu caused the introduction of the institution of Tang to the Kingdom. At around this time, the traditional belief on the five mountains became a part of the royal rites. This shift weakened the status of the center mountain and the belief on the five sacred mountains in the capital failed to settle as an institutional custom. However, the failure does not mean that the belief was replaced by an expanded belief on the five sacred mountains of Silla. The fact that the deities of Namsan and Geumgangsan mountains appeared in front of King Heongang suggests the persistency of the belief and the existence of the deep rooted sense of superiority of the capital dwellers till the end of the Kingdom.