『능엄경언해』를 통해 본 조선 초기 『능엄경』 수용에 대한 관견

Abstract

Eonhae' refers to translating texts written in Chinese characters into Korean and writing the translation in Hangeul. Eonhae documents in early Joseon were often regarded valuable as Korean treasures upon their discovery. That is because they have value not only as historic documents but also as cultural properties, in addition to being significant as early texts written in Hunminjeongeum, promulgated in 1446 and the original name of Hangeul. Therefore, Buddhist scriptural eonhae documents, including the early Joseon translation of the Śūraṃgama Sūtra, were mostly studied with a focus on the linguistic system of eonhae. In terms of Korean linguistics, eonhae has high value as a resource to give us some idea about how the language was used at that time. In terms of philology, eonhae documents are studied in two ways. First, the physical bibliography explores the types of paper and printing process used. Second, the textual bibliography explores the temporal order between documents and theentry of characters or the identity/difference of the characters in a document. The Neungeomgyeong eonhae (Korean Translation of the Śūraṃgama Sūtra) was a scripture translated into Hunminjeongeum based on the annotated version of Song China’s Jiehuan, which was one of several versions of Lengyan jing (the Śūraṃgama Sūtra’s translation into Chinese). This was a tradition from the late Goryeo era when the study of Lengyan jing was dominated by an annotated version of Jiehuan. The Neungeomgyeong eonhae consists largely of three parts: explanation of the sutra title (tongseok gyeongje), description of textual organization (tongseo gwapan), and the main text and explanation (gyeongseok jeongmun). Therefore, based on the Lengyan jing annotated by Jiehuan, the Neungeomgyeong eonhae presents the original Chinese text accompanied by “gugyeol”—the Korean phonetic or meanings of Chinese characters—and adds a Korean translation of the original text; then after a few lines, adds only the original Chinese text without gugyeol and the text translation. The Neungeomgyeong eonhae also includes gugyeol in other sections, such as the comprehensive summary (yohaeseo), explanation of the sutra title (tongseok gyeongje), and gyeongseo. The Korean translation of the main text has annotations—in smaller fonts and/or in parenthesis—within the body to provide supplementary explanations. Thus, even profound content can be easily understood if readers know how to read Hangeul. This ease of scriptural reading and word-for-word literal translations are regarded as a means to promote understanding of the content. This accords with the literal value inherent in Hunminjeongeum.