신라 의학의 국제성과 의약교류

The International Aspects of Silla's Medicine

This paper aims to research the development of the Silla's medicine and its international aspects, focused on international trade of the medicine among Silla, Tang China and Japan. I take universality and peculiarity for the characteristics to distinguish the ancient period from the medieval era in the medical history of Korea. The international aspects of Silla's medicine can be found from the fact that after unifying the Korean Peninsular, Silla positioned itself as an important consumer and exporter in the trade of medical materials in East Asia. Silla came into a full-blown contact with Tang's medicine through the unification war of the mid-7th century. Silla not only embraced Tang's medicine, but also exported homegrown medicinal materials along with acupuncture needles and techniques. After accomplishing the unification of the Three Kingdoms, Silla even put together medical traditions possessed by Goguryeo and Baekje, and at the same time, adopted the medical system of Tang as the standard, thereby achieving the prototype of Traditional Korean Medicine (韓醫學). The establishment of ‘Ihak(醫學:national medical school)’ in 692 demonstrated that Silla's rulers set the goal for its medicine by adopting Tang-style medical system. Through such moves, Silla's medicine was able to gain universality and compatibility that were acceptable in the medical community of East Asia. Dodaiji(東大寺) Shosoin(正倉院) of Japan well exhibits an aspect of Silla's medical industry as a result of its universality. There were so many drugs from Silla, including several preparations. After unifying the Korean Peninsular, Silla secured not only home-grown materials such as ginseng(人蔘) and ox bezoar (牛黃), but also various high-end materials through importation to export compounded medicines so that it created a high value of added industry. From this research, we were able to understand that while Tang's medicine constantly embraced diverse knowledge available within East Asia and supplemented so that it could become the standard framework of this region, Silla's medicine existed within the broad boundary of East Asian medicine as a branch of medicine equipped with universality, compatibility and international characters.