한문소설 南柯錄에 나타난 종교사상 연구

Abstract

This dissertation aimed to research into the religious thoughts of Namgarok which was written in Sino-Korean. Especially I investigated the mechanism that they functioned and were operated inside the text. This intention of study required an exhaustive examination about the narrative logic and strategy of the text. The plot-line of Namgarok is divided into two branches that one is overt plot constructed by positive(virtuous) characters and the other is covert plot by negative(evil) characters. Through the overt plot, the author try to exhibit the process that Karma(a causality-retribution) and Samsara(a cycles of life) are accomplished by good conducts. On the other hand, by the covert plot, he suggests that wicked conducts lead the subjects of them to a cruel downfall. In particular, he focuses on revealing the vicious practices of Three-poisons in the latter. The author of Namgarok creates five spacial dimensions and products a meaning by the sequence of events that occur in those spaces: heaven-world, earth-world, Taoist&Buddhist world(仙佛界) on earth, underground-world and underwater-world. Among them, the earth-world is the most corrupt space that is most far away from the good or virtue and related to the universe in the way of synecdoche. Eventually it means that the ruin and purification on earth coincide with them in universe, and the earth is the kernal of all the spaces. Therefore, if it is purified by the law of Buddha, the whole universe will be a paradise, the Buddhist Elysium. After all, I think, Namgarok is the novel which shows the course that all the worlds are operated by the law of Buddha through describing the war in the earth and the characters connected with the war.