조선시대『佛說阿彌陀經』變相版畵의 도상연구

The Iconography of the Transformation Print of Amitabha-sutra of Joseon

Regardless of the times, people have constantly desired to go to (Amita) pure land after death, and this popularity of Amita faith has brought a number of transformation paintings to be produced and reproduced. In this sense, the transformation painting of Amitabha-sutra provide some insight into the Amita faith of that time and are also an important field of study in examining iconography included in the paintings. A total of 29 woodcut prints related to Amitabha-sutra are passed on and known to be published in Joseon, among which, 13 woodcut prints contain transformation paintings and were produced in the late 16th century. The transformation prints of Amitabha-sutra of Joseon are classified into two different types based on how the paintings are placed inside the book: one is putting paintings and texts together; the other is placing paintings only at the beginning of the book. The iconography included in the paintings can be examined based on the scriptures. The transformation prints of Amitabha-sutra of Joseon belong to the first type and have paintings on the upper part and texts on the lower part. This type of prints is 5 in total, and it either copied or revised the image painted on the book published in 1572 in Deokju temple. Such prints also have 26 (transformed) scenes engraved, except for the one published in Yongchun temple which adds Yongsunjubindo (龍船接引圖) onto 18 to 24 sheets of printing blocks. This type of print of Amitabha-sutra was produced in Ming of China as well. However, they are different in details of the image and in the way of writing the accompanying inscriptions. This suggests that China may have produced the prints which have paintings at the top and the texts at the bottom, apart from (the type of) the Chinese prints existing today. There are 8 transformation prints of Amitabha-sutra which place paintings at the beginning of a book. This number includes transformation prints of Amitabha-sutra and related scriptures such as Bulsul-Amitabha-sutra-yohae(佛說阿彌陀經要解) and Dae-Amitabha-sutra (大阿彌陀經). Unlike the type of prints mentioned earlier, this type of prints is composed of many different images, except for the reprinted editions of the book published in Duck temple (1871) in the 20th century. For this type of prints, key images are selected from the type of the transformation prints described above, and some images are adopted from other transformation prints of the Lotus Sutra and Amitayurdhyana Sutra. A good example is the transformation prints included in Dae-Amitabha-sutra (大阿彌陀經), which is Amita-related scriptures published in Bokwang Temple in 1881. They consist of paintings printed in 2 sheets of printing blocks - Painting of Sakyamuni's Preaching and a memorial tablet printed on one side and Painting of Amita Pure Land printed on the other. They can find their origin in the transformation prints of Sakyamuni Platform Painting published in Qing and the transformation prints of Amita Pure Land published in Ming, both of which exist today. Therefore, there is a need to conduct more in-depth studies on such combination of iconography.