홍익인간의 기원과 이념, 실천방향

Abstract

This thesis is based on the study of HongYikYinGan(弘益人間) shown on DanGun Mythology: the origin, ideology and way of practice of HongYik- YinGan, which is the founding principle and educational ideology of Korean nation meaning ‘You should make the human beings widely good’. It is thought that this ideology was presented by the ancient Korean people long ago but has been reflecting the symbol of Korean nation still for such a long period. It is HwanYin(桓因) who presented such ideology of HongYikYinGan while it is HwanWung(桓雄) who came down to the earth to practice such ideology. As HwanWung wanted to govern the world of human beings, his father HwanYin was looking for the land that would be good for HongYikYinGan and pointed out Mt. TaeBaek good for it, and then HwanYin gave his son the three items called CheonBuYin(天符印) so that his son could govern the land. Together with the troop of 3,000 people and the gods of wind, rain and cloud needed for agriculture, HwanWung ‘governed his land with reason to educate his people’ rather than with power dealing with more than 360 kinds of work relevant to the world of human beings such as grain, disease and etc. This story has been working as the spiritual anchor of Korean people who love peace. Today, most of countries claim to advocate representative democracy. There is, however, a huge weak point in the representative democracy that it ‘will ignore the opinion of the minor group even if such opinion is a good idea’ because of its majority rule. In this point, the HwaBaek system of Shinra is meaningful enough to be looked into because the work of persuading the minority was prior in HwaBaek based on discussion. That is, it showed the process of accepting even minor groups’ opinions not through the tyranny of the majority but through discussion and persuading.