檀君神話 小考

Abstract

Myth is a creative work based on archaic thinking. In the world of myth, which is dominated by archaic thinking, the animals and plants all have their own thinking, consciousness and social lives as same as human. There are not only communications among them, but also concern marriage sometimes. So does the legend of Tan-gun. Undeniably, there are so many external influence mixed into the legend, such as Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism (the action of asking for permission by Huan Xiong to his father, Huan Yin, to go to the man’s world, can be explained by the filial consciousness in Confucianism, e.g.). That shows the legend of Tan-gun has been changed for many times when it passed on as an existing writings. Neglecting the external influence, we can still experience a scene that in the primitive tribe, the Tan-gun or Kojosons sat around, listening to the ancestor stories about mating with animals, monstrousness of snake or dragon, the power of tiger or leopard, auspicious sign of phoenix, and the heaven and earth opened up from the chaos. Compared to the comic spirit of Greek mythology, the Korean and Chinese mythology are more similar in the mood of serious and solemn. Sometimes, the serious mood may be even depressed, and the solemn may be oppressive, while full of introversive hardship and rational reflective thought. The suffering process of transforming from bears to human and the process of birth because of the marriage between gods and bears are seemingly to represent the difficult process of transition from uncivilized condition to civilization of human society. We can find out the backward and introspection on the whole civilizing process from fear to gods, respect to ancestors and sacrifice to the legend of mountains or trees. Therefore, it can be said that as the first ideology came into existence after human language, the deep structure of mythology reflected the early culture of the nationality. Also it will deposit on the under stratum of the national spirit to transform to a kind of automaticity collective unconsciousness which affected the whole development process of culture deeply. Taken in this sense, the research on legend of Tan-gun is also the research on the innermost structure of national psychology, culture and history of the Hankyoreh, on the exploration and searching about the roots of Korean Peninsula Culture.