붓다 화현설(化現說)의 기원과 전개 - 빠알리(Pāli) 초기불교경전을 중심으로 -

Abstract

The Buddha was a historical person who was first regarded as a great master. By stages, his adherents attributed him to have superhuman qualities in late phases of early Buddhism. Thus the Buddha was represented as 'human' and 'superhuman' on different occasions in most of the Pāli texts. Relatively, very little information as to the personality of the human Buddha is available and the superhuman qualities of the Buddha are more predominant as the main content for an independent concept of Buddha. These qualities both intellectual and moral and even physical sufficed to make him a superman or some kind of divinity. Therefore the Buddha-concept can be said fundamentally to be how his followers try to pay a special tribute to their teacher, in other words, the Buddha in its transition from that of a human being to the position of a superhuman being. The sole Buddha-to-be, i.e., the Bodhisatta arose in the Tusita heaven and remained there and descended from that heaven to the earth as if he was going to carry scheduled mission of the whole universe. It blocked off ultimately the possibilities of the plural Buddhas at the same time in one world. Such a limited Buddha-concept is called as "the theory of single Buddha at same time in one world" in the history of Buddhist thought. Nevertheless to say this theory had already its deep roots and base in the Pāli Nikāyas of early Buddhism. Motive and chief aim of the present study is to expound the textual(or the traditional) understanding of the sole Buddha-concept. Thus the study examines mainly of how the Buddha attained a monopoly of unique specimen and of how it moved on the concept of 'Buddha-manifestation' as the ultimate reality of the world.