사회복지 관점에서 본 홍익인간 이념

Abstract

This article is based on the study on the idea of HongIkInGan in the viewpoint of social welfare, which is seen in DanGun Mythology. As many know, HongIkInGan is the national foundation idea and education thought of Korea. Such idea of HongIkInGan was presented by HwanIn(桓因) while it was HwanWung(桓雄) who had come down to the people’s world to practice it. The HwanWung wanted to govern such people’s world, and then his father HwanIn searched for the land to plant HongIkInGan. While searching out for it, he determined that Mt. TaeBaek would be good for HongIkInGan. Then, he gave his son three items – Cheon, Bu and In (天, 符, and 印) - so that his son should govern the land with such three items. Finally, HwanWung came down to the land with this troop of 3,000 people as well as such experts as PungBaek(風伯) for wind, WuSa(雨師) for rain and WunSa(雲師) for cloud, and then he began to dominate the world and educate the people managing more than 360 worldly matters such as Gok(穀, crop), Myeong(命, life), Byeong(病, disease), Hyeong(刑, punishment), SeonAk(善惡, goodness and badness) and etc. Touched by HwanWung’s governance, a bear and tiger came to HwanWung to beg him for them to become human. Then, HwanWung taught them how to become human. However, only the bear followed the way and changed itself to a woman while the tiger failed. Unfortunately, there was not a man who wanted to marry the bear-girl, WungNyeo. Therefore, HwanWung changed himself to a man shortly to marry her. It was DanGunWangGeom(檀君王儉) who was born between the couple. Later, DanGunWangGeom founded the country, JoSeon(朝鮮), which is called Old-JoSeon or DanGun’s JoSeon to identify it from GiJa’s JoSeon and Lee’s JoSeon. What the things related with social welfare from DanGun Mythology is the idea of HongIkInGan, with which HwanWung “dominated the world and educated the people managing more than 360 worldly matters such as Gok (穀, crop), Myeong(命, life), Byeong(病, disease), Hyeong(刑, punishment), SeonAk(善惡, goodness and badness) and etc”. Generally, the primary social welfare items are JuGok(主穀) for economic stability that is directly related with food and life of people, JuMyeong(主命) for social safety network that help people living their given lives and JuByeong(主病) for disease cure while the secondary welfare items are JuHyeong(主刑) to restore the social order and JuSeonAk(主善惡) to build a moral society through encouragement of goodness and demolition of badness. That is, the idea of HongIkInGan worked for the social welfare including economical, biological and emotional stability.