조선시대 지리산에 대한 다양한 인식과 이용

Abstract

The goal of this writing is to look into the way people from different walks of life, communities and religions looked on Jiri Mountain and they used it. Mt. Jiri whose boundary meets lots of villages in Yeongnam and Honam areas was known as a mountain with great efficacy and had been highly valued at the state level since Shilla. In the Chosun Period, with the organization plan for the Confucian worship system of the spirits of mountains or rivers, the title as a mountain spirit was taken away from the Mt. Jiri, and the shrine for the mountain's spirits was established in Namwon in Jeolla Province, where the rituals for the spirits began to be held. Several religions including Buddhism and Taoism were incorporated into the belief in the spirits of Mt. Jiri. There were many other shrines besides Seongmo(聖母: holy mother) Shrine. Every spring and fall there were held prayers by common people or shamans from the three southern provinces: Gyeongsang, Jeolla, and Choongcheong. It was not rare that poor people or runaways moved into the mountain in search of their shelters partly because of its abundance in edible plants or partly because of its deep and thus inaccessible valleys. Even under the religious suppression from the government, a considerable number of Buddhist temples were newly built around Mt. Jiri. Among them, quite a few temples had shrines for the mountain spirits in them. People involved in Buddhism tended to contain Seongmo-Cheonwang(聖母天王) or other religious images as Buddhist items to increase its prestige. Unlike Buddhists, Confucianists didn't think that they needed special worships for the mountain's spirits, and they even had a contemptuous attitude toward the ritual ceremonies by shamans or Buddhists. It was just for enjoying scenery , nourishing their literary spirits, and refreshing their worn-out souls with worldly things that Confucianists went to Mt. Jiri. Like this, common people inclusive of shamans, Buddhists, and Confucians are so different from another in their perceptions and uses of Mt. Jiri. That could be the reason why not a few conflicts between classes erupted, related to Jiri mountain. What was worse, from very early on, local government officials had plundered the isolated areas in Jiri mountain where shamans and common people lived, and thus their complaints reached their peaks.