寺刹文獻에 나타난 創寺緣起說話의 사상적 기저

The Divided Thoughts in Recorded Folklore of Building Temples

Buddhism, which flourished from the 6th to the 14th Century as a nation's religion, gave rise to religious tales, lives of famous priests and their miracle in the building of Temple. In the Samguk dynasty (Dynasties of three nations), story collectors were low governmental officials hired by the palace. Both anecdotes and strange stories were circulated among Buddhists as reference materials for administration collectors of recorded folklore of temples and they not only collected the stories from the Buddhists, but also added a personal touch to the stories to make them more entertaining or didactic. Among the best known is the Samgukyusa that is believed to be complied in miraculous stories and it reveals in realistic language the power of the Buddha and urges living beings to become pious believers in plot and technique. This is a short story recorded in Chinese character. The basic stories of temples, especially the part of dealing with five ideas - thought of geomancy, thought of Buddha's home, high priest worship, mountain worship, thought of Dragon God - are different significantly from the folklore which was sung by people. On the ground of five thoughts we see recorded folklore of temples which the ordered chroniclers ignored in cooperating temple foundation stories recorded in Chinese character. Learned men wanted at the time to preserve Buddhism in the closest to a Buddhist tale writing system as far as they could. That distinguishes the recorded folklore in Buddhist Gimoon(記文) from general folklores in Buddhist tales and legends. Wise Buddhist presented several kinds of temple stories and tales to illustrate Buddhists. For this purpose the most central theme is thought of geomancy, thought of Buddha's home, high priest worship, mountain worship, and thought of Dragon God, which achieved the idea of temple stories in the middle age. Therefore, contradictory as it might seen only by living in this world with things can we transcend everybody life and achieve Buddhist enlightenment and salvation.