신라 아찬 金恭順 神道碑片 검토

Abstract

The fragments of a stele, newly discovered at the Namsan-sa temple in Gyeongju, the Silla capital, are parts of the oldest memorial stele existing in our country. This study has analyzed the contents of the partial inscription by examining the remaining characters on every line. The first line from the top concerns the stele’s title, which elucidates that it was set up to the memory of Kim Gongsun, a holder of achan, the sixth office rank of the Silla dynasty. It is revealed that the system of calling the family name and given name together did not pervade Silla society, in that this stele defined "Gongsun," not "Kim Gongsun." It is also remarkable that an honorific title "gong" was suffixed to the character achan. The seven lines ranging from the second through the eighth lines describe the peson Kim Gongsun. Inferring from the part that he was “a grandson of King Taejong” and a passage that he was “a descendant of Soho,” he is considered to be a man in close connection with the Silla’s royal household of the middle period. Presumed to be a man from the true-bone rank, he displayed distinct activity, including assuming office as magistrate of the Cheonryeong district when he was just twenty years old. Regretably, we know nothing about him beyond that, because we have just examined a part of the stele. Considering the fact that the stele was erected to the memory of a person of the office rank of achan, however, it is supposed that he died an unnatural death while he was young. In particular, when we pay attention to the six great disturbances and consider him in relation to the Kim Daegong’s plot against the monarch in 768 (in the fourth reign year of King Hyegong), he is presumed to have been a person who performed the meritorious deed to quell Kim Daegong’s treason activity. The time of the stele’s erection might be inferred from the place name “Cheonryeong district.” Because the name resulted from the Silla policy of Sinicization in December 757 (the sixteenth reign year of King Gyeongdeok), it is presumed that it was set up roughly in the latter part of the eighth century. More specifically, it is surmised that it might have been erected at a certain point of time before January 776 (the twelfth reign year of King Hyegong), when the previous place name was restored, especially immediately after Kim Daegong’s treason was shattered. The above accounts are a product of a rudimentary analysis that has investigated the contents of the inscription only under certain restriction, because the fragments under study are no more than the opening part of the whole stele. Henceforth, a more detailed examination without being restricted by time may cause us to find much more historical facts. I hope that the still undiscovered fragments of the stele will be additionally excavated soon.