Myths and Legends From Korea

7/27/2019 Myths and Legends From Korea

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Myths and Legends from Korea. An Annotated Compendium of Ancient and Modern Materialsby James Huntley GraysonReview by: Karel WernerJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Third Series, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Nov., 2001), pp. 414-417

Published by: Cambridge University Presson behalf of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britainand IrelandStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25188199.

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414 Reviews ofBooks

author, besides presenting explanations of technical terms, discusses the implications of the translatedtexts.

Section A on the so-caUed defeat (p?r?jika) concerns variants of the offence which merits

expulsion from the sa?gha. It involves sexual union or its approximation, when a nun oozing withdesire, consented to physical contact with amale person who is oozing with desire ; when a nun,aware of such misbehaviour by another nun, does not report it;when a nun foUows amonk who hasbeen suspended from the sa?gha; when a nun, facing a male donor, agrees to various intimacies oraccepts a special food donation from him wh?e both are oozing with desire ; if she is not in that

frame of mind, but he is and she knows it, it is a lesser offence, caUed sangh?disesa, which attracts onlysuspension. A related offence which requires confession (p?cittiya) in the assembly is committed whena nun converses with a man in situations of privacy. Among the selections in Section B areiUustrations of rules which forbid ordination of women who seek to escape punishment for crimes,are pregnant, are nursing

a child, are under ageetc.

Thematic studies to both sections demonstrate convincingly how rules for nuns were graduaUytightened more and more and how the discrimination against nuns kept increasing which reflects thecultural situation of women in traditionally male dominated societies. This ismost blatantly shown

when the penalty prescribed for the same offence is heavier for nuns than for monks. Yet the authorshows, by analysing most of the extant versions of pr?timoksa, the code of rules recited in the fuU- andnew-moon assembUes, that originaUy nuns were governed by the same rules as monks. The P?Uversion of these rules for nuns (Bhikkhun? P?timokkha) is shown also on ph?ological andterminological grounds as being much later than the version for monks (Bhikkhu P?timokkha).

Thepoints

demonstrated in this book, too numerous and compUcated to be fuUy reviewed here,are important and should be noted not only by speciaUsts. Their incorporation into a more generalpicture of Buddhism presented in books for wider readership is highly desirable. This book is, ofcourse, for speciaUsts, although even they may find that its style and layout make its systematicreading a bit difficult. But a reasonably good Index helps to locate information on specific questionsscattered throughout the text of the book and in its extensive footnotes. The book is produced withthe usual high standard of PTS pubUcations, with only a few misprints. (E.g. on p. no, note 204;there is dupUcation of a phrase on pp. 139-40; and two misprints are even in the PTS president's

Preface. One sentence, on pp. 134?35, has remained incomprehensible to me.) The BibUography isvery valuable for further research into the subject.

Karel Werner

Myths and Legends from Korea. An Annotated Compendium of Ancient and ModernMaterials. By James Huntley Grayson. pp. xx, 454. Richmond, Curzon, 2001.

The author, who spent some sixteen years in South Korea and is now reader in Modern KoreanStudies at the University of Sheffield, has developed a strong interest in Korean oral folklore and isobviously eminendy qualified for the task which he set himself in this book and for which he receivedsubstantial support from several institutions, EngUsh and Korean. His approach to his material is,

basically, anthropological, but in quoting, in his Introduction, Franz Boas (1888-1942), the giant ofthe culture-centred school of anthropology, he shows his cornmitment to this kind of deeper and

more broad-minded outlook than one perceives inmany recent speciaUsed anthropological studies.When speaking about oral tradition one has to be aware that aU ancient and even modern folk

narratives are read?y ava?able only in written form, but the author sensibly explains that they are stiUauthentic as long as they are not products of awriter or comp?er of tales, but records of anonymous

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Reviews ofBooks 415transmission. He also provides, at the outset, useful definitions cum explanations of basic terms as he

understands them: folklore, folk narrative, myth, legend and folktale; as weU as of some technicalterms, such as Weltanschauung, existential and normative postulates, ethnogenesis etc. To enhance

understanding of the values, beUefs and symbols incorporated in Korean myths and legends, theauthor divides what he caUs Korean cognitive history into five periods during which theperspective on and experience of those values, beliefs and symbols underwent substantial shifts: (1) theancient period of nativistic culture (with elements of ancient Korean folk reUgion and shamanism)before major foreign cultural inroads took place - prior to the fifth century AD; (2) the period ofearly absorption of mainly Chinese culture with its Buddhist and Confucian (and partly also Taoist)constituents mingling with nativistic ones - fifth to tenth centuries; (3) the time of a kind of synthesis(or should we rather say symbiosis in most cases, with Taoism only latendy present) of thesetraditions - eleventh to mid-fifteenth centuries; (4) a period of domination of Confucianism (underofficial neo-Confucian administration) when Buddhism and indigenous traditions suffered someoppression - mid-fifteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries; and (5) the modern period of absorption of

western culture with inroads by Catholic and Protestant Christianity, to say nothing about westernsecularism - mid-nineteenth century to the present. The author, however, presents material fromonly the ancient and modern periods. The former he divided into two sections, one dedicated tofoundation myths and the other to legends and tales, and in the latter he deals with folktales.

Foundation myths are ethnogenetic - a type of creation myth concerned with the origin of thestate, nation, people, dynasty or national culture, while creation myths proper ? of which none has

been recorded in Korea (except as folktales of the modern period) - are aetiological , explaininghow things came to be, and they go as far back as the origin of the universe.

Prominent among Korean foundation myths is the Myth of Tan'gun in which, the author states,there is a Uvely popular and scholarly interest, but there is, in fact, more than that. I gather from othersources that it is the basis for a new, or renewed, indigenous reUgion known as Tan'gungyo or

Taejonggyo and also Han'gomgyo. Itwas called to life by a group of inteUectuals who were meeting inthe closing years of the nineteenth century. Resenting the fact that reUgions dominating Korea came

from China, India or theWest, they decided to renew the reUgion of Tan'gun whose traces were stillevident in the Confucian state cult and in popular worship of the god of mountains. The first leaderof the sect was Na Ch'?l, and as the year of its formal foundation was 1910, the sect sufferedpersecution under the Japanese colonial regime which reportedly drove Na Ch'?l to suicide (1916),but prompted a popular reaction which generated support for the old-new cult outside the inteUectualclasses as weU. The leaders of the movement took refuge in Manchuria to escape persecution andestabUshed its headquarters in Seoul only after the defeat of Japan in 1945. It is now supposed to havethousands of members and the control of about 80 temples. Its eclectic teaching has a philosophicaldimension in that it stresses co-substantiaUty of godhead and humanity. Outwardly it is marked by atemple ritual in old-style ceremonial costumes which is directed to Tan'gun as the divine founder ofthe state and nation. (The supreme deity, stiU named Hwanin, the heavenly king of the old myth, isaddressed directly only on rare occasions.)

The Myth of Tan'gun teUs the story of the foundation of the first Korean state caUed Chos?n (aname of Chinese origin which is usuaUy translated as the land of the morning calm ). Hwanung, thesecond son, or the son from a secondary wife, of the heavenly ruler Hwanin, descended from heaven,

with the approval of his father, onto a mountain with a sandalwood tree, to rule mankind for itsbenefit by estabUshing civiUsed ways of Ufe with the assistance of a retinue of spirits, specialists invarious aspects of culture. A bear and a tiger who lived as friends in a cave wanted to share in this andbe transformed into humans. Only the bear fumlled the conditions set by Hwanung, and was turnedinto a woman who then prayed at the sandalwood tree for offspring. Hwanung obUged and she bore



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4i6 Reviews ofBookshim a son who was named Tan'gun, the Prince of the Sandalwood Tree. Tan'gun then created thestate of Chos?n and ruled the Korean nation for more than a thousand years whereupon he withdrew

from the scene to become the mountain god, having passed on the rule to his son or a relateddynasty.The author presents four preserved versions of the myth from different sources, and subjectingthem to thematic structural analysis, finds six distinct scenes in them: (i) Decisions made in heaven;(2) descent to earth and the estabUshment of divinely ruled kingdom; (3) the transformation of ananimal into human form; (4) the union of heaven (the king from heaven) and earth (the bear womanrepresenting the earth spirit) which led to the birth of a son; (5) the creation of the state; (6) passingon the rule and withdrawal of Tan'gun into the spiritual dimension as the mountain god. In thecourse of his analysis the author identifies some universal mythological elements, such as the sacred

mountain and the sacred tree as representing axis mundi and as the place where the sacred and profanecome together. On another level the descent of the secondary

son of the heavenly kingcould be

interpreted as amigration story of a people who came from afar to rule over local peoples. Elementsof ancestral totemism and magic are also identified. The bear woman's prayers on the summit of thesacred mountain and at the base of a sacred tree point to a shamanistic ritual. (Female shamans are stiUa part of popular reUgious scene in Korea.) The author even extracted some historical facts from the

myth on the basis of references to Chinese sources and discusses the uses of the Tan'gun myth for thepurpose of estabUshing poUtical authority throughout Korean history. Curiously enough, it wasutilised in this way even by communist North Korea for Kim Ch?ng?, the son of Kim Ils?ng, thefirst leader of the state, to secure the dynastic continuity. A modern myth was created, according towhich Kim Ils?ng had been born where Hwanung descended from heaven. In 1994 the governmenteven announced that they had found and excavated the tomb of Tan'gun with his and his wife'sbones (now displayed in a new museum nearby) which was then reconstructed , with statues ofTan'gun's four sons.

Foundation myths of Korean kingdoms subsequent to early Chos?n receive a similar treatment tothose for ancient Chos?n and they are supplemented by sections about myths on various Koreanclans' origins, foundation myths of the states of Northeast Asia, including the Mongol and Manchudynasties which eventuaUy ruled China, and of the early Japanese Yamato state, and the foundation

myths and legends of the tribal people of Northeast Asia. The section closes with Comparison ofNortheast Asian Foundation Myths which enables the author to suggest that the Myth of Tan'gundates back at least to the middle of the first miUennium B.C. He concludes that itwas, to begin with,a tribal origin myth later reused for the purposes of telUng the story of the origin of a state in Koreaand its ruUng fam?y.

The section Legends and Tales from the Ancient Period contains, in the part on aetiologicaltales, seven tales on the origin of Buddhist temples which demonstrate the syncretic trend in Korean

Buddhism, incorporating the traditional cult of waterspirits (dragons), dream visions, Confucian f?ialpiety, the guardian function of the deceased relatives, stiU looking after the welfare of the Uving etc.,aU this being ut?ised for the sake of strengthening the faith of people in Buddhism (which thusdemonstrates in Korea its traditional tolerance of indigenous cults in countries in which it took root).There are two etymological tales concerning names of Buddhist Temples and also eight heroictales of Buddhist monks and five edifying tales of Buddhism, including one on the attempt of a

king of Kogury? to introduce Taoism in the seventh century. It teUs how Taoist priests renamed thefeatures of the landscape and destroyed an ancient shamanistic rock (which had been left untouchedunder Buddhism) whereupon a mountain spirit prophesied the destruction of the kingdom (whichduly happened and Taoism never recovered the position of a reUgion in Korea and has no templesthere). Confucian virtues, on the other hand, are extolled in four tales and they also suffuse other tales



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(one can notice the influence of Confucian values on the manners of Korean people even today).Tales of magic, divine protection and healing and even adventurous and amusing tales foUow.

The section on Folktales from the Modern Period has, as weU as the same types of tales found inthe ancient period, a number of animal stories in which bears and especiaUy tigers and foxes featureprominendy. In analysing the tales in his commentaries the author focuses on what he describes as

four possible functions of a folktale which express the underlying existential concerns of apeople : (1) amusement or the escape from oppressive circumstances into fantasy; (2) the vaUdationof the fundamental existential postulates of the culture ; (3) conformity to social standards; and (4)information about the origin of the world, the people, the state, natural circumstances and socialcustoms. Although recorded in modern times, motives and themes of most of the tales presented bythe author may be quite old. But there are also examples of modern and even European influences.

In the part on Aetiological and Etymological Tales there are several tales about origins. The firstone is on the creation of the universe and it shows a

high degreeof

syncretism;the elements of local

cults of the original folk religion are overlaid with Buddhist ideas and concepts. Thus, for example,Miriik (the future Buddha Maitreya) appears as the creator of heaven and earth. But thereafter

everything iswrapped up in a fantastic web of events in which animals and natural phenomena play asubstantial part. Among the edifying and moral tales are some which teU of misdeeds of monks andtheir punishments (a theme known from many other traditions, both Asian and European). The

Confucian value of filial piety is high on the agenda and in one tale it is even rewarded by a tiger. Atale on the theme of a pound of flesh , an obvious Korean adaptation of the plot from Shakespeare's

The Merchant of Venice, was used here to underline the magistrates' duty to be just, fair andperceptive .

There are altogether 175 Korean stories in the book, aU analysed and set into the broader contextof Far Eastern and even Central Asian mythology and folklore which is iUustrated for comparison bysixteen additional stories from those areas. The book has extensive footnotes, a rich BibUography andsixteen appendices which include lists of folklore motifs according to Thompson's classification andthe Aarne-Thompson index of types of folktales and a table enabling the corresponding identificationof the tales in this book. There are very few minor inaccuracies in the book, but perhaps one isworth

mentioning: Sarasvati is not a Buddhist, but a Vedic-Brahmanic-Hindu goddess who was, like someother members of the Hindu Pantheon, aUowed a part in Buddhist mythology (p. 170, note 6). Thestyle of the book, which is obviously a piece of immaculate academic research, is very clear and easyso that lay readers interested in folktales may find it a delight to read, skipping over only somespecialised passages. One wonders what riches may become accessible, if the author manages topubUsh a similar work deaUng with the three omitted periods of his Korean cognitive history .

Having visited altogether 48 Buddhist temples during two trips throughout South Korea, theirfoundation stories impressed me as being particularly fascinating, but I failed to find any comprehensive work dedicated to them. But there are many worthy topics within the rather neglected field of

Korean studies waiting to be tackled.Karel Werner

An Anthology of Premodern Japanese Senryu. Light Verse from the Floating World. ByMakoto Ueda. pp. ix, 270. New York, Columbia University Press, 1999.

Ifwe were to nominate the category of material most difficult to translate, we might choose poetry,or else comic writing. Take a comic poetry that satirizes a distant society, in a tradition for whichaUusion, the coUision of registers, elision and observation of the contingent are prominent, and you


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Myths and Legends From Korea