Нарративные аспекты прошлой жизни (전생) в буддийских историях республики Корея и Шри-Ланки

3. The past-birth motif in the buddhist storytelling

3.1 The supernaturalism and the pastbirth motif

Many stories of Samgukyusa related to monks, temples, pagodas and Buddha `images` are not explications nor annotations of Buddhist doctrines. The `author` Iryeon just showed the stories as samples of conflicts and assimilations between imported Buddhism and native Korean life. He portrayed the history of many noted temples describing the conflict between a monk who wanted to build a temple at a site and dragons that struggle against the monk to protect its habitation. Moreover, many biographical records on the high priests are organized not only to represent the actual deeds. On the contrary, he collect overlooked records in the precedent books and parallelized them with formal records. The great quantity of Buddhist narratives, anecdotes on primitive beliefs, and folk-tales in this book explore the state of Buddhism in Shilla society and locate Buddhism of Shilla as much developed as China's Buddhism. Especially Four chapters (or parts) named respectively Shinju (神呪), Gamtong (感通), Pieun (避隱), and Hyoseon (孝善) in the volume fifth of the Samgukyusa are recording biographies, miraculous anecdotes, and efficacy stories of Buddhist priests and lay believers during the era of the Silla Dynasty after its official adoption of the Buddhism (A.D. 528). The Maha vam sa contains anecdotes of monks, stories of temples, images, and pagodas. The stories of Saddharmaratnavaliya are including many difference aspects of the previous life of Gautama Buddha, and including life stories of many monks.

The supernaturality is a common narrative element of these Buddhist stories. It usually happens or occurs in the process of a certain monk’s anecdote. This motif is assumed originated from the Buddhist perspective of the cycle of reincarnation (Samsara). In addition, they are used to emphasize the sacredness of Buddhist monks. Actually the supernaturalism (神異) is one of the distinctive and common elements of the earlier narrative in the Eastern Asia region. About the ‘shini (神異)’ as a narrative discourse in Korean literature, see 박성지(2012). <고려시대 기이담론연구>. ‘shini (神異)’ in the Eastern Asian narrative genre: Korea-傳奇, China-志怪, Japan-物語. This is a complex concept of '神聖 (sacredness)' and '奇異 (wonder).' In the Samgukyusa, the supernaturalism is converted in diverse motives.

Among these diversities of the supernaturality, the past-birth motif is focused in the research. The ‘past-birth’ is one of 'supernaturality' motives. This is the event(s) in one's past birth which motivate(s) the present event in a story, and is related with 'karma (업/업보)', one of Buddhist doctrines. Karma, literally action or deed, is one of important Buddhist doctrines. Good and bad karma refer to acts of merit and demerit and their consequences. Not only in Buddhist stories but in other literary narratives, especially in Korean classic fictions as like Guunmong (구운몽. The cloud dream of the nine), karma frequently operates as a key motif in order to propel the story. In the Jataka stories and many Buddhist stories of Sri Lanka, the 'past-birth' has been using as a key element of the narrative structure. In a comparative study on Buddhist stories of Korea and Sri Lank, past-birth could be a useful tool to analyze and understand the narrative structure and the theme.