『韓詩外傳』과 『法句比喩經』의 비교 연구

Abstract

The Hansi oejeon, written by Hanyoung in the West Han period, is one of the three annotative books of the Sigyong("the Book of Songs") in the early stage. The Beopgu biyugyung serves also as an explanatory book for the Beopgugyung or the Dhammapada("an Anthology of Statements of Buddha's Teaching"). The Sigyong and the Beopgugyung, the anthologies respectively of Confucius and Buddhist poems, were difficult to understand, to the extent that they needed complementary explanations. The Hansi oejeon and the Beopgu biyugyung, which appeared to meet this demand, differ from other explanatory books in that they assume the form of narratives and this characteristic makes them count as literary works. Although the two books did not influence each other, they share similarities in many ways. First, as mentioned above, the two texts serve as annotations on the Sigyong and the Beopgugyung, both of which are composed only of verses, and have been considered as sacred books in the Confucius and Buddhist cultures. Secondly, an individual text of the Hansi oejeon, 310 texts, and the Beopgu biyugyung, 73 texts, consists of a prose and a verse or more. The prose and verse are based on a metaphoric relation where the prosaic part functions as a vehicle and verse part does as a tenor. Thirdly, the prosaic parts of the two books generally assume the form of parables for common people, specifically non-educated people, to easily understand the profound meanings of the verses of the sacred books. On the basis of these similarities, this article intends to compare the two discourses in terms of genre, polyphonic structure, and the characteristic of the mixed style of prose and verse. In genre the prosaic parts assume the pattern of didactic narrative mode and verse parts the didactic lyric mode. This kind of didactic element provides a ground that we can read these discourses as allegories. As discourses with mixed style of prose and verse, they can be categorized as "an annotative type" among 6 types of the mixed-style discourses. The comparative study on the two texts which, with no influential relationship with each other, have so many commonalities, reveals an universal facet of human thought, particularly in religious sphere.