『삼국유사』 「흥법」편의 구성적 의미

Abstract

Samguk yusa has a complex character in the composition of chapters, and the key link to understand the complexity is Heungbeop(興法) which means the promoting Buddhism. Heungbeop can be summarized as describing the occurrence of Buddhsim in the Three Kingdoms(三國), but the meaning of Heungbeop is not simple. In particular, it is very important to see why Heungbeop was placed between Gii(紀異) and Tapsang(塔像) with regard to the overall composition of Samguk yusa. In this study, I analyzed the writing of Heungbeop and reveal who promote the Buddhism and what its meaning is, and further discussed the compositional meaning of Heungbeop in Samguk yusa, which is exepcted to find a clue to identify the whole character of Samguk yusa. According to the analysis of the writings of the six stories in Heungbeop, the main character of the narrative is not the eminent monks but the king. This shows that Heungbeop is not biographies of the eminent monks at all. In fact, the eminent monks just transmitted Buddhism, which is a necessary condition of the promoting Buddhism. And the promoting Buddhism was completed by the king played an equal role with the eminent monks, which means that Heungbeop is not just a Buddhist history but also a political history. The writing of Heungbeop encompasses religious history and political history by showing that the eminent monks and the king, Buddhism and Confucianism played an equal role in the promoting Buddhism, which was the reason why it was placed between Gii and Tapsang. In other words, it serves as a bridge between them. Through this, Ilyeon(一然) tried to say that political history and religious history are not separate from each other, and that they are intertwined with each other. Even though it was a real history, Confucian historiography excluded most of the Buddhist history and Buddhist historians described only the Buddhist history centered on the eminent monks. In order to correct such distortions and biases, Heungbeop was placed between Gii and Tapsang.