乃菴 崔左海와 그의 經學

The Study on Confucian of Nae-am Choi, Jwa-Hae

崔左海(1738~1799)의 號는 乃菴이며, 사림에서 올린 私諡는 淵正先生이다. 18세기 英․正祖 시대를 살면서 修己를 기초로 人倫을 지키고, 實踐躬行함으로써 堯․舜․孔․孟의 계통으로 이어져온 도통을 고수 하고자 하였던 학자였다. 본고는 수많은 經典 註釋이 있음에도 불구하고 최좌해에 대한 연구가 전무한 실정에서 최좌해를 연구하는 기초단계로서 최좌해의 생애와 經學의 特徵에 대하여 살펴본 것이다. 먼저 최좌해의 생애에서는 經典硏究와 敎育者로서의 삶에 대하여 방대한 양의 주석을 남긴 점과 수많은 생도들을 교육한 내용을 年譜와 기타 자료를 통해서 자세하게 살펴보았다. 그리고 그의 경전 주석의 특징에서는 ‘朱子註의 受容 拒否’와 ‘淸代 經學의 受容’ ‘獨自的 見解의 導出’ 등 세 부분으로 나누어 그의 경학에 대하여 대체적으로 살펴보았다. 이를 토대로 최좌해의 경학에 대한 심도있는 고찰이 이루어지길 기대한다.

Nae-am(a pen name) Choi, Jwa-hae is known as Yeon-jeong to the scholastic group of Confucianism during the Jeseon dynasty. Through this research, it became clear that Choi, Jwa-Hae followed the sincere Confucian principles suggested by Chinese confucianists such as Xun Zi, Confucius, and Mencius during his life throughout 18th century. Following a life of educators of Confucianism, he revealed his scholastic point of view by studying massive Confucian scriptures, including rare Chinese scriptures written by Yee, do-ryang and Yeo, yoo-ryang. Those scriptures were quite novel and considered to be valuable literature to this day. In terms of his life as an educator, he dedicated his life to educate people regardless of their social status, complying with Yul-gok’s teachings. When it comes to analyzing Confucian classics, however, Jwa-hae didn’t apply the Chuhsi’s translation method, thinking that it focuses too much on literal translation. Instead, Jwa-hae’s method focuses on understanding overall meaning of the main contents. On the contrary, Jwa-hae accepted the Confucian translation method popular during the Ching dynasty, which indicates that he was also one of typical Confucianism followers. Interestingly enough, he even distinguished what is worldly music from what is royal music, stating that if a king enjoys worldly music with his people, then it could become royal music too. It indicates that Jwa-hae really applied comprehensive approach to understanding classical Confucian scripts instead of Chu Hsi’s literal translation. Another point which makes Jwa-hae different from other Confucians is that he placed a comprehensive summarization after each chapter. wish this paper to be a stepping stone toward subsequent research on Confucian scriptures during the late Jeseon dynasty and Choi, Jwa-hae’s other works on poems and other literature.