혜초 <왕오천축국전>의 기행문학적 고찰

Abstract

Wang-O-Chon-Chuk-Guk-Jon(往五天竺國傳) is Hye-cho's(慧超, 704-708) pilgrimage through the northeast India and the Central Asia from A.D. 723 to A.D.727. In this paper I have studied the Wang-O-Chon-Chuk-Guk-Jon(往五天竺國傳) from a travel literary viewpoint. First of all, it is necessary to study the route of the East Chon-Chuk(東天竺, East India) trip, because the beginning part of the roll which is a shortened version of Hye-cho's original works was destroyed. As a result, it is assumed that the route of East Chon-Chuk trip is from Mahābodhi(摩訶菩提: located in Buddha Gayā) and Rājgir(王舍城) through Kuśinagara(拘尸那) to Sārnāth(鹿野苑). Second, this paper studied about the way of descriptions and the contents in the travel literature. Hye-cho was primarily concerned with Buddhism. Hye-cho is not only interested in politics and military force, but also he observed various aspects of daily lives of mankind such as social system, economy, culture, food, clothing, shelter, products, language, weather, and geography etc. Hye-cho tried to describe this travels objectively, so his writing probably had to be strict and simple. Therefore, Hye-cho wrote five poems about what impressed him in his Five Chon-Chuk(五天竺)trip. Owing to these five poems, Wang-O-Chon-Chuk-Guk-Jon(往五天竺國傳) could be a travel literature. So I have analyzed these five poems in Chapter 4.