조선 전기 개전 및 종전 의례의 구조와 사례

Abstract

War has always been a part of human history. The most critical difference between wartime and peacetime is whether murder is permissible. During war, acts that are taboo in civilized society, such as murder, are not only permitted but even encouraged. For this reason, from ancient times to modern times, there were few societies that did not perform any rituals when starting a war. Likewise, the transition from wartime to peacetime is equally important. This is because society can return to daily life by announcing that the abnormal state in which murder is encouraged has ended and returned to normal. From this perspective, the series of opening rituals that start a war and the ending rituals that conclude a war are one of the universal rituals of mankind. Traditionally, in Confucian society, it was considered an ideal to establish the country’s major rituals were classified and systematized into five kinds(Orye). Among them, the rituals of opening and ending the wars were generally placed as one of the ‘military rituals’. However, in the case of Joseon, in the process of establishing national rites according to the traditional Orye system, the rituals of opening and ending the wars were not included. Nevertheless, in the early Joseon Dynasty, the rituals of opening and ending the wars were often performed. In this study, we reviewed the cases of war opening and ending rituals implemented during the early Joseon Dynasty and estimated the reason why they were not established as national rituals even though they were implemented several times. First, Joseon’s military mobilization method, in which generals and soldiers started separately. It is important for the soldiers carrying out the war to participate in the ceremony for the opening of the war, which secures the legitimacy of the war and prays for victory. Therefore, there is a possibility that the opening ceremony could not have been regularized in a situation where generals and soldiers did not gather. Next, the war opening and closing rituals were conducted in a similar sequence to other rituals, ‘Gilye’. The various ceremonys performed during the war opening and closing rituals were not much different from the ritual procedures of the rite of passage, so there was no need to prepare separate manual. Lastly, unlike many other ‘military rites’, the opening and ending rites of war were only performed in times of emergency, so it may have been recognized that they could not be made regular. The rituals that Joseon established as national rituals were performed repeatedly at set period of times, making it possible to predict the cycle of implementation. From this perspective, we can consider the possibility that rituals that took place only in t he ideal state o f war were not considered rituals.