<용문20품>에 나타난 북위의 유가사상

Abstract

Longmen Ershipin(Twenty Inscriptions of the Longmen Grottoes) of the Longmen Caves in Henan, China, which were executed during the later Northern Wei period, are the twenty among thousands of inscriptions that are excellent in calligraphy. Their contents are so important for the study of the Northern Wei thoughts. Nineteen of the twenty inscriptions are in the Guyang Cave, the first supported by the imperial family, aristocracy, and imperial monks of the time, and the rest is in the Cixiang Cave, excavated much later. A peculiar thing of Longmen Ershipin is that they were donated by many females. This informs us that females made big contributions to the development of Northern Wei Buddhism. All the twenty inscriptions basically connote Mahayana Buddhist thoughts that its aim is to save all creatures. But at the same time they also involve basic Confucian thoughts: royalty and filial piety. Interestingly, the Confucian ideas are clearly classified according to the sex of donors; males expressed their royalty, but females did not. In other words, the former has concerns about things outside, but the later prayed for the safety of household and the welfare of parents, a husband, child, and/or grandchild. If so, what is the background of the Confucian thoughts in the Buddhist inscriptions? I believe it is related to the social atmosphere of the time that reflected the planned-reforms of the court for sinicization. From the beginning the Northern Wei chose Buddhism as a state religion and simultaneously regarded Confucianism as a state ideology. Accordingly, the Confucian education for all levels of people reached a peak during the later Northern Wei. As a result, the Confucian thoughts even influenced Buddhist art and finally produced Longmen Ershipin. Because of this relationship between art and politics, Lonmen Ershipin are exclusively crucial relics of the Northern Wei.