The Shamanistic Ideological Foundation of Korean Religious Thought Daniel Jordan Korean Civilization
The Shamanistic Ideological Foundation of Korean Religious Thought
Daniel JordanKorean Civilization
In many cultures throughout the world the shaman plays a pivotal social role,
functioning as the intermediary between everyday human activities and the realm of the
spirits. This position traditionally serves to provide animistic communities with a person
capable of direct communication with the personified forces of nature, being able to
mediate problems between the two worlds. A typical shaman is also believed to possess
numerous other supernatural abilities, such as the power to exercise demons, assist the
deceased in transmigration, dissolve bad luck and generate good fortune, heal others,
divine auspicious dates, predict the future, and summon rain. All of these powers, which
are usually endowed to the shaman by either an ancestor spirit or a deity, are used
specifically to strengthen and sustain the community. The role of the shaman is,
therefore, to help people living in this world with their everyday, corporal problems.
Also, the shamanistic tradition is not overly concerned with creation, particulars of the
afterlife, philosophy, prescribed morality, rigid cosmology, or consistent pantheons.
Overall this style of belief system, having no single founder or set of scriptures, tends to
be amazingly flexible and resilient, adapting itself to the introduction of new ideologies
and surviving even through harsh persecutions.
In the Korean peninsula the earliest known religion was a form of shamanism and
folk tales collectively known as Musok. After having entered into the country from
Siberia, Musok took firm root into the peoples’ spiritual perception. As new doctrinally
sophisticated religions with structured shrines, temples, and clergy entered into Korea,
Musok continued to thrive amongst the common people by yielding to the new religious
traditions and integrating new ideas and deities into their rituals and customs. And, by
taking the lower role, even though they were looked down upon, Musok was able to
2
continue to appeal to the people’s need for spiritual guidance, reassurance, and active
repair of worldly life problems. Acting as the spiritual undercurrent throughout Korean
history, Musok was able to absorb many of the practices of Religious Daoism while
gradually forcing a transformation in Korean Buddhism and Confucianism.
In order to better understand the foundational religion of Korea, Musok, one must
first understand its origins and central stories. In Korea there is no ancient documentary
evidence for any form of creation myth that is concerned with the origin of the universe
or mankind in general. Instead, the oldest surviving documents are the myths of the
people, state, clan and culture.1 Easily the most significant, widely respected, and
propagated of these stories by the Korean people at large, regardless of their religious
affiliations, is the Myth of Tan’gun, the legendary founder of the first Korean state, the
Kingdom of Wanggom Choson. Perhaps the oldest recorded complete version of this
legend is found in the Samguk Yusa, which was a compilation of ancient myths written in
the thirteenth century by the Buddhist monk, Iryon. The earlier written form of the story,
found in the Samguk sagi, was a historiographical work composed one-hundred years
earlier by the Confucian scholar, Kim Pusik. Iryon, who is considered to be the first
Korean folklorist, released his text to counter the intentionally demystified Confucian
adaptation with a complete, rigorously researched piece of ancient Korean folklore.2
According to the expanded tale, when the mythical Emperor Yao ruled China,
Hwanung, the Prince of Heaven, decided that he wanted to possess the world of man. So,
his father descended to earth at the place of the Three Great Mountains, to survey and
judge all of humanity. Deciding that the people would benefit from his son’s rule,
1James H Grayson, Myths and Legends from Korea: An Annotated Compendium of Ancient and Modern Materials (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2001), 252 Ibid..26
3
Hwanung was sent from the heavens down Mount T’aebaek to the bottom of the Sacred
Tree with a retainer of three thousand spirits and three holy relics or seals of his divine
office. The Sacred City was founded around the Tree and the prince took the name
Hwanung Ch’onwang, which means Hwanung the Heavenly King. Together with the
Earl of Wind, the Master of Rain, and the Master of Cloud, Hwanung governed the
people, supervised agriculture, and cured diseases. At that time a bear and a tiger, who
were living together in a cave, prayed to Hwanung to transform them into humans. The
God gave them two sacred herbs, mugwort and garlic, and told them to stay out of
sunlight and fast for three times seven days. The Tiger was unable to fast, and so
remained, but the bear transformed into a woman. Being unable to marry, she traveled to
the Tree and petitioned Hwanung to give her a child. Manifesting himself as a human,
Hwanung personally impregnated her. The child that the bear-woman bore was named
Tan’gun Wanggom, who established the nation of Choson and ruled over it for 1500
years. By the time he was 1,908 years old, Tan’gun surrendered power to King Hu of
Cho, escaped to the Sacred Tree, and became a san-shin, a Mountain God, of that
particular mountain.3
The different elements of the Tan’gun legend are very shamanistic in nature,
emphasizing how Hwanung used magical practices such as weather control and spiritual
healing in the governing of his people. But more important, perhaps, are the parallels that
many scholars have drawn between this foundation story and what is known about
ancient Siberian tribes. First, the axes mundi, or the bridges that serve to connect heaven
and earth together for travel, are in the form of the triple mountain and the mountain with
the Sacred Tree. This is significant because one of the most important aspects of Siberian
3 Ibid..31
4
shamanism is the idea of the Cosmic Tree, which serves the same purpose as the tree in
the Tan’gun myth.4 Also in Siberian shamanism, mountains are believed to be holy places
that possess their own guardian spirits, like the spirit that Tan’gun himself transformed
into at the end of his life.5 And while he was portrayed as the central character, Tan’gun
might not be the name of a specific individual since his name has been linked by many
modern scholars to the Mongolian word, Tengri, which means Shaman King, and when
written in Chinese uses the characters for “birth tree” and “lord.”6
The most interesting possible connection, however, is found in the interplay
between Hwanung and the two animals, which both display human characteristics but are
not civilized. On the surface level of the story, Siberian myths often tell of bear shape-
shifters, which is a quality that does not exist in other ancient Korean myths.7 When
looked at symbolically though, the animals’ relationship becomes obvious. Although
most ancient Siberian tribes worshiped heaven, many large outside groups of tribes or
nations were represented with different totem animals.8 It is then possible that a large
group of ancient Siberians tribes may have at some point absorbed the less-developed
Bear tribe of ancient Manchuria, before invading and setting up a city in Korea.9 The
myth could also mark the introduction of bronze from Siberia, providing the Tan’gun line
of kings with heavenly strength, before the “King Hu of Cho,” an iron using ruler of a
Chinese state, forced the fall of the Tan’gun and their retreat to the mountains.10 The long
4 Alan Carter Covell, Folk Art and Magic: Shamanism in Korea. (New Jersey: Hollym, 1986), 205 Grayson, Myths and Legends, 356 Chsi-ahin Yu and R.Gulsso, ed.. Shamanism: The Spirit World of Korea. (Berkley, California: Asian Humanities Press, 1994), 987 Anne Leena Silkala,. “Siberian and Inner Asian Shamanism.” The Encyclopedia of Religion Vol13. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. 1987), 2138 David A. Mason, Spirit of the Mountains: Korea’s San-Shin and the Traditions of Mountain Warship. (New Jersey: Hollym, 1999), 1329 Ibid..13210 Ibid.. 132
5
lived Tan’gun, therefore, very well could have been a lineage of Shaman Kings rather
than a single divine man.
If the bear represented a Manchurian tribe, then the tiger must represent another
significant group who were either brutally defeated or perhaps not fully integrated into
the kingdom and made civilized. It is also interesting to note that san-shin mountain
spirits, like the one that Tan’gun transformed into, are always depicted in artwork as
either a lone tiger or as very old person with a tiger companion. Though the Tan’gun
iconography is clearly different from that of the old person, who in early history was
sometimes depicted as an old woman but later became fixed as a male Daoist immortal, it
still stands as an interesting coincidence that that in many parts of ancient Korea the
people identified themselves with the image of the tiger.11
Whether or not ancient Korea was ruled by a line of shaman kings, it is still clear
from the physical historical relics that that some form of shamanism was being practiced
throughout the peninsula during the Old Choson Period, which spanned from 2333 BCE
to about 50 BCE. Many important pieces, like those that employ the use of deer antler in
crowns to demark royalty and the frequent finds of bells and mirrors made of bronze, are
clear signs of a Siberian influence. And recently numerous pieces pained on white birch
bark and used to decorate saddles were discovered dating from 400 to 500 CE.12 This is
significant as a Korean find primarily because the use of white birch was considered a
sacred material for the ancient Siberians due to its connection with the myth of the
Cosmic Tree.13 Moreover, one of the main differences between the practice of ancient
Siberian shamanism and Musok, besides the pantheon and culturally delineated song and
11 Covell, Folk Art and Magic, 4212 Ibid.. 2013 Ibid.. 20
6
dance, was the concept of direct astral projection into the outside world and onto spiritual
realms, was represented by the image of the flying horse.14 The newly discovered birch
bark pieces from the Silla Kingdom, whose official state religion was Musok until 526
CE, depict many varied images of riderless horses in flight.15
Most of what is currently known about Musok is only learned from studying its
modern form. By the time written Chinese characters had been introduced into Korea,
around 660 CE,16 Musok was heavily looked down upon by most of the educated elite.
Therefore, almost nothing detailed was written about it, except in the limited context of
Buddhism, Confucianism, or general politics.17 Also, there was almost no recovered
artwork from the Musok tradition because all of the images that a mudang, or Korean
shaman, possessed were crafted to assist in ritual magic and were therefore burned with
the mudang at her death to protect their sacred energies.18 However, looking more closely
at modern Musok provides a glimpse into the past, through the traditions that have lived
on, and aids in understanding the powerful impact that the tradition has had upon the
Korean people throughout the rest of their long history.
The word mudang, unlike most Korean words, does not have any solid,
indisputable, corresponding Chinese characters ascribed to it. Instead it seems to have
been formed from an admixture of various north and central Asian terms for shaman,
such as the Mongolian utagan, the Turkish utygan, or the Yakut udayan, with the m
sound originating from the influence of the Chinese character mu.19 The persecution and
14 Silkala, “Siberian and Inner Asian Shamanism,” 21415 Covell, Folk Art and Magic, 2016 James Huntley Grayson, Korea – A Religious History. (New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002), 2417 Kim Hyu-key Hogarth, Syncretism of Buddhism and Shamanism in Korea. (New Jersey: Jimoondang International, 2002), 15918 Covell, Folk Art and Magic, 2219 Hogarth, Syncretism, 160
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general negative attitude toward Musok by government authorities and mainstream
Korean society over the last few hundred years has stigmatized the term mudang, and
forced a proliferation of alternative possible titles, such as the common name, manshin,
which means the myriad spirits.20 For utility and convenience, this paper uses the word
mudang when referring to any and all Korean shamans, since the other titles tend to refer
to the particular gender or locality of the shaman.
Mudang can be classified into two general types, god-descended and hereditary
shaman, depending on how they received their abilities and training. God-descended, like
many of their Siberian counterparts, become inflicted with “possession sickness,” which
has been likened to acute schizophrenia. These otherwise normal people suddenly
become physically weakened, meditative and dreamy, have prophetic dreams, seek
solitude, and sometimes suffer seizures that render them unconscious.21 And the shamanic
call is not volitional, being followed by spiritual encounters within their dreams that
display or demand the transformation. Unless the ill person drops any previous
occupation and seeks to become a shaman, the mysterious sickness will continue
indefinitely, often increasing with time and occasionally resulting in death. Moreover, if
the new mudang chooses at anytime throughout the course of their lives to abandon the
profession, the illness immediately returns.22 The hereditary shaman, which exists only in
certain areas of Korea, is a variant that is trained by his or her parents and typically
receives an ancestral spirit as a primary tutelary guide. This type of mudang, unlike the
god-descended shaman, does not have the power to summon spirits directly into their
20 Ibid.. 16121 Ibid.. 17222 Ibid.. 172
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bodies, but must rely on telepathic communication alone when relaying messages from
the spirit world.23
In Korea, where being a shaman is not a lofty societal position, the people who
tend to receive the “possession sickness” come from the lower economic strata, having
almost universally suffered great degrees of hardship.24 Many of them like to say that
they were obliged to become mudang because the spirits made them fail in whatever they
did.25 Yet interestingly, as noted by numerous anthropologists, most mudang seem to
coincidentally fill certain unspoken physical and mental requirements, being typically
attractive, warm, empathetic, individuals with a sharp wit, a keen mind, and strikingly
powerful eyes.26 Also many seem to possess a hypersensitivity to the physical world and
the emotional states of people around them, which is allegedly caused by their innate
energy, and provides the ability to psychically tune into their clients. Though it is
unknown exactly when the idea of ki, or spiritual energy, was integrated into the Musok
tradition from China, many modern mudang will use this as one of the explanations as to
why they were chosen by the spirits for “possession sickness,” stating that their high level
of natural ki is both a cause of their illness and that the usage of the superfluous energy is
its cure.27 And this seems to be supported by the many people who receive the sickness
but lacked the funds and connections to become a fully initiated mudang, opting to use
their abilities by becoming fortune tellers, exorcists, or spirit mediums in order to lighten
the symptoms while making a living.28
23 Ibid.. 16224 Ibid.. 16625 Ibid.. 17026 Ibid.. 16827 Ibid.. 16828 Ibid.. 173
9
For most, being a mudang means being a vital and flexible member of the rural
community. The majority are women who have the ability to resolve normal family
disagreements, mediate between village disputes, and act as a matchmaker for possible
arranged weddings.29 These commonplace skills are complimented by their spiritual
guidance, the authority of their supernatural foreknowledge, and general above-average
intelligence. Much of their everyday work involves divination of auspicious days and of
the future.30 The most important, and expensive, tool in the mudang’s arsenal, though, is
the Kut, which is a very long, elaborate spiritual ritual where the shaman invites the gods
by entering into an ecstatic trance, or in the case of the hereditary mudang, by means of
frenzied dance and music.
Like the word mudang, kut does not have an equivalent Chinese character, and
could either have its origins in the Korean word kutta, which means foul or unfortunate,
or it could come from the Mongolian qutug or the Turkish qut, which both mean
happiness or good fortune.31 Either way, the kut ritual seeks to transform generally bad
situations into auspicious ones, through use of scripted drama, costume, music, song and
dance, feasting to appease the spirits, and often, intentional possession of the mudang by
either her tutelary spirits or of the recently deceased. In order to entertain both the spirits
that she invoked and her clients, the mudang performs acts of magic while in her frenzied
trance state. Among many other displays the mudang will dance barefoot upon sharp
swords, climb ladders constructed from blades, swallow hot coals, lick the edges of
knives, eat large quantities of uncooked pig intestines, and press lit cigarettes to the skin
without leaving any mark. Though the blades used in these performances are well
29 Covell, Folk Art and Magic, 19430 Ibid.. 19531 Hogarth, Syncretism, 175
10
sharpened and the coals are hot, during the kut the mudang do not hesitate, let alone
suffer any form of injury,32
The different types of kut can be broadly broken down into four distinct
categories: the kut for the dead, the healing kut, the good luck kut, and the kut for the
mudang.33 Each of these types is almost always opened with a prayer to the mountain
god, San-shin, who protects the proceedings,34 but beyond that each and every individual
Kut will be slightly different because of the variety of traditions and teacher lineages and
the personalization that is done for each individual client or situation. In general,
however, in any kut for the dead at some point during the proceedings the mudang will
create both a symbolic bridge, for the observers, and an energetic bridge, for the spirit,
which connects this world to the underworld. Then Saje, a death messenger, will come to
carry the spirit over. In cases of sudden, unexpected death, the messenger Samsong will
take the spirit because extra care is needed in situations where the deceased might be
confused, upset, or possibly even become a violent ghost.35 These mortuary rituals also
often involve a chance for the family to either talk to the loved one through the mudang
as an intermediary, or directly through the mouth of a fully possessed mudang.36
The healing and good luck kut both serve to try and remove malignant or violent
spirits, be it a hungry ghost, displeased ancestor, nature or house spirit, or a demon. In
healing kut the negative entity is well fed and entertained before being exorcised, either
by asking it politely or in more desperate situations, by forcefully removing it and
transferring it into a live chicken, which is killed and buried afterwards.37 The good luck
32 Covell, Folk Art and Magic, 15733 Hogarth, Syncretism, 17734 Mason, Spirit of the Mountains, 14035 Hogarth, Syncretism, 17936 Ibid.. 19337 Ibid.. 179
11
kut, which is currently the most popular,38 functions under a similar mechanic, but tends
to be far more elaborate. Here though, the tutelary spirits are most often evoked to grant
the mudang the power to perform her most powerful and impressive feats of magic.
While these displays are highly entertaining to the clients, their primary purpose is to
impress and frighten the negative entities into complying.39 In both the healing and the
good luck kut, however, the mudang only uses force against the negative spirits as a last
resort. Overall, the spirits must be treated with respect even though they might have been
the cause of the sickness or ill fortune within the family.
Kuts performed for the mudang can be further divided into the ritual feeding of
their tutelary spirits and the kuts for the initiation of new mudang. After a person who has
been inflicted with the “possession sickness” decides to become a Mudang and either
finds a teacher or enters into a group of shaman, she must first spiritually cleanse all
unclean elements present in the ritual place. The initiate then receives spirit costumes
from her master, which when donned symbolizes the complete separation of the person
from her old life.40 A performance is ritualistically acted out to show the death of the
initiate and her rebirth as a mudang. This seems to be related to blood rituals performed
by some Siberian tribes for the same purpose, which make use of sacrificial animals for
the death and rebirth.41 Next the new mudang is placed into a trance state where she
opens up her body as a host for her new tutelary spirits. The other mudang stand by to
guard the body from being possessed by negative spirits, and slowly and painfully the
new mudang discovers and becomes acquainted with the primary deities that will help
her throughout the rest of her life as a shaman.38 Ibid.. 18039 Ibid.. 19640 Ibid.. 18141 Silkala, “Siberian and Inner Asian Shamanism,” 211
12
For the individual mudang, thec tutelary spirits that she can call upon are vitally
important to her being able to perform any powerful magics. Direct hierarchy amongst
these deities is typically very difficult to see because each Mudang is slightly different
and no two deities are ever manifested simultaneously.42 It is known, though, that almost
all Mudang unanimously agree that Chilsong, the seven spirit god, is somehow at the top,
even though no god has power over any other, as Zeus does in the Greek pantheon.43
Instead, he is a single god who is made up of seven distinct yet equal spirits, who
collectively represent the Big Dipper. This deity was probably incorporated into Musok
from Religious Daoism at some point between the official introduction of the religion in
624 CE, and its expulsion from Korea after the collapse of the Koguryo Kingdom by the
now Buddhist nation of Silla in 670 CE.44
Near the end of the Koguryo Kingdom, Daoism had become very popular and
temples and shrines popped up rapidly throughout the kingdom. The religions ability to
overlap and integrate itself with Musok and local San-shin cults allowed for a general
state-wide acceptance. By about ten years before the Silla invasion, Daoism was
announced as the official religion, although part of the motivation for the push was to
help strengthen ties to T’ang China, whose emperor at the time claimed to be a
descendent of Lao Tzu, the legendary founder the religion.45 Very small Daoist cults
survived through the Silla, the Koryo, and as far into the Choson Dynasty as 1600 CE,
but only on the periphery of societal and religious culture.46 What truly bore deep into the
Korean mind was not the religion itself, but the ideas from it that were able to saturate
42 Hogarth, Syncretism, 20043 Ibid.. 20544 Mason, Spirit of the Mountains, 14545 Hogarth, Syncretism, 13746 Mason, Spirit of the Mountains, 145
13
Musok. The idea of the san-shin mountain spirit, which is greatly revered by the mudang,
evolved to include several phases in the process of total self-transformation, which they
saw mirrored in the Tan’gun legend. The extra step of the san-shin dosa, or the long lived
mountain hermit, was added as a prerequisite before a person could transform into a full
fledged san-shin.47 Also the iconography changed from the mountain having various
human representations, including female, to solely displaying a tiger with the old Daoist
sage who carries a walking stick and the elixir of immortality, the goal of Religious
Daoism.48
The greatest impact that Daoism had on all of Korean history, though, was
through the acceptance of feng-shui theories, or Chinese geomancy, pronounced pung-su
in Korean.49 The basic belief which became an integral part of Musok, Buddhism, and
Confucianism, was that the earth is alive with active, fluid ki, which concentrates in lines
and pools according to geological and geographical conditions. Because the influence of
this energy is supposed to be strongest in mountains, over time the introduction of this
philosophy also gave more authority to the San-shin cult and mudang who claimed a san-
shin as their tutelary spirit.50 Additionally, according to this belief, if architecture is built
in the wrong position or if the design is poor, energy flow will be impeded. Also,
important for both Musok and Korean Confucianism’s funerary rites was the knowledge
that the family members were buried in accordance with pung-su principles, or else, it
was believed, that the relative would become a hungry ghost.51
47 Ibid.. 9248 Ibid.. 5549 Ibid.. 14850 Ibid.. 14851 Chsi-ahin Yu, Shamanism, 99
14
Though pung-su was actively used without a second thought in popular
Confucianism, on the academic level it became a major point of contention at the onset of
the Choson Dynasty. King T’aejo, the first Choson king, was raised as a Buddhist but
decided that because he had taken the kingdom by force, he would be best protected by
adopting the hierarchical Confucian ideology as the government’s official system. He
nonetheless gave the high title of the Royal Preceptor to a Buddhist monk named Muhak,
who became both the King’s spiritual teacher and trusted political advisor. Because the
learned Confucian courtiers had been granted huge sway in state matters, Muhak both
feared and held in great disdain. The tension grew so strong that when Muhak was asked
to design the layout of the new capital, which he did according to pung-su principles, the
court fought vehemently with him on the location of one of the city walls. Muhak had
placed the wall so that a set of powerful rocks, called Sonam or Zen Stones, were within
the city. The people at this time felt as if the tension between Muhak and the courtiers
directly over this one matter would determine the final result of the power struggle
between Confucianism and Buddhism. Finally, the courtiers came before the king and
claimed that the snow had melted immediately along the line that they had made for the
wall, leaving everything within dry and the rocks covered in snow. King T’aejo
considered this to be a divine sign and sided with the Confucians.52 This event marked the
beginning of the fall of Buddhism in Choson, but, interestingly, the stones became a
significant site for both Buddhists and Mudang because of its historical significance and
its powerful energy.53 The monk Muhak was also integrated into Korean shamanism as
the important deity, Muhak Taesa.54
52 Hogarth, Syncretism, 14453 Ibid.. 24354 Ibid.. 144
15
Perhaps because many mudang were Buddhists before receiving the “possession
sickness,” innumerable Buddhist elements run rampant throughout Musok. Many other
famous monks have become lesser deities, and some of the most important gods in the
pantheon are actually different Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Sakyamuni Buddha plays an
important role, but is typically trumped by Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of
Compassion, and Yaksa-yorae, the Physician Bodhisattva, who are both more widely
evoked and venerated.55 Musok shrines, which developed from the Daoist concept,
abound in Buddha images as well as the shaman deities, and the homes of local mudang
receive the –sa ending, which is typically reserved for Buddhist temples.56 Also,
uninitiated shamans who operate as fortune tellers are known by the public with the name
Bodhisattva, and use the Buddhist inverse swastika as their identifying symbol.57 But
perhaps the most significant change in Musok, which marks a departure from Siberian
shamanism, was the abandonment of the blood sacrifice as an important ritual
component. In Korea vegetarianism was taken so seriously in Buddhism that their copies
of the sutra omit the section in the history of Sakyamuni where it says that he died from
having eaten a piece of bad pork.58 Therefore before a Buddha is even evoked during the
kut, all meat is always covered to make sure that the deity is not offended.59 Additionally,
when summoned the tempo of the music is dropped and the costumes worn are drab in
color to display the somber energy that the Buddhas embody.60
Acting as the religious backdrop upon which Buddhism fell when it became the
official religion during the Koryo Dynasty, Musok flavored the people’s world view and
55 Ibid.. 23956 Ibid.. 23557 Ibid.. 23658 Ibid.. 1059 Ibid.. 23660 Ibid.. 243
16
perceived purpose of religion. In the Koguryo Kingdom, which was the first to make
Buddhism its official religion, the king instructed his people to “believe in Buddhism to
obtain good fortune.”61 From the onset Buddhism was seen as a new method for obtaining
health and good luck, and for providing good weather and protection from conquerors.62
Throughout its history in Korea, Buddhism has been known as the “nation protector.”63
This title was used in early propaganda, but stuck in 668 CE after a group of organized
young men called the Hwarang helped to unite the Three Kingdoms under Silla.64 These
attractive children of aristocrats were hand chosen for their strength and intelligence to be
trained by Buddhist monks in martial warfare, Buddhist ideals, divination, and spirit
communication.65 Considered to be the ultimate warriors, the Hwarang displayed the
perfect blend of Korean ideology.
Buddhism underpinned the unification and secured its place for the rest of history
as one of the prime Korean religions. It was further fortified by the fact that the people
believed that Maitreya, the Buddha of the future, had come to earth prematurely to assist
in the unification. According to legend, in the year 579 CE a monk named Chinja prayed
to Maitreya that he might incarnate as a Hwarang. One night, in his dream, a monk
appeared to him and told him to travel to a temple in Kongju and meet the Wizard
Maitreya. When he awoke, he happily spent ten days traveling to the temple. Outside the
gate he met a young man with beautiful eyes who led him to the reception room. After
that, the boy vanished without a trace. Chinja told the local monks about his vision and
asked if he could wait for the coming of Maitreya. The monks suggested that he go to
61 Ibid.. 12262 Ibid.. 12263 Ibid.. 12364 Ibid.. 13365 Ibid.. 134
17
Ch’on Mountain, which was famed for its supernatural energy. Following this advice, he
walked there and was greeted by a san-shin, in the form of an old man. The spirit laughed
at Chinja and told him that he had met Maitreya already at the door. Quickly he returned
to the temple and when he could not find the boy, asked the king to hunt him down.
Eventually the youth was found and tested for his magical ability. The king named him
Mishi and placed him at the head of the Hwarang. For seven years Maitreya walked
amongst the warriors, whom he taught order, etiquette, supernatural ability, and the road
to enlightenment before disappearing back to the Tusita Heaven to wait for his final
incarnation.66
The story of Maitreya’s premature incarnation cemented Buddhism’s authority in
the United Silla and the Koryo periods, filling the people with a sense of national pride
and spiritual importance. But this story did not just propagate the importance of the
Maitreya character; it also showed the prevalence and respective power of the san-shin.
The underlying foundation of the shamanist perspective flavored many of Korean beliefs
and practices. Korean Buddhism still deeply reveres the san-shin, honoring him with
paintings in every major Buddhist temple.67 Perhaps during the exile of Buddhism, during
the Choson Dynasty when Buddhism was forced out of the cities and into the mountains,
many other Musok deities were incorporated. Though San-shin remained unchanged,
Chilsong, the shaman adaptation of the Daoist Big Dipper deity, was transformed into the
Seven Buddha Stars, a widely venerated group of seven lesser Buddhas.68 And two of the
most important Bodhisattva in modern Korean Buddhism did not exist prior to this
period, the Sunlight and Moonlight Bodhisattvas, whose origins are unknown, but they
66 Ibid.. 13567 Mason, Spirit of the Mountains, 16168 Hogarth, Syncretism, 316
18
were likely to have been derived from ancient shamanistic beliefs.69 Yongwang the
Dragon King is an indispensable Musok god who has a personal shrine in most Buddhist
temples in order to help control the weather.70 Also artwork from the Koryo period
frequently depicts the Musok deities giving offerings to the more lofty Buddhist gods.71
More direct elements of Buddhism were altered or refitted to appeal to the Korean
people or adapted during the period of Buddhist exile in the mountains during the Choson
Period. Like many religions that attempt to establish themselves in a new country, many
of the hundreds of special days celebrated in the Korean Buddhist calendar were placed
directly on top of preexisting Musok holidays.72 But perhaps the most significant
alteration to Korean Buddhism is found in its funerary rituals, where the monks perform a
shamanistic crossing over for the dead and mortuary rites, which occur on the 49th Day
ritual and the 100 Day ritual, to pray for the well being of the dead.73 This element, which
is so central to Musok, also appears heavily in Korean Confucianism.
The Analects of Confucius explicitly tell people to be filial to their parents and
honor their ancestors through maintaining funerary rituals. In China scholars interpreted
this to be a part of the greater Confucian philosophy, which sees order through structure,
pattern, and habit. They felt that these rituals for the spirits of the dead served to create a
greater sense of family and obligation.74 The secularization of the ideas did not transfer
into Korea, where the people already had thousands of years experience in rituals for the
spirits of the dead and a very active cultural spirituality. During the Choson Dynasty,
69 Ibid.. 10170 Ibid.. 31871 Covell, Folk Art and Magic, 6172 Hogarth, Syncretism, 31873 Ibid..35674 Roger L. Janelli and Dawnhee Yim Janelli. Ancestor Warship and Korean Society. (California: Stanford University Press, 1982) 9
19
when Confucianism was being enforced as the official state doctrine and both Musok and
Buddhism were facing progressively harsher persecution,75 the people were forced to turn
to Confucianism to fulfill a culturally acceptable need for spirituality. In this type of
Confucian ancestor-worship pung-su geomancy was used to divine the best possible
location for burial. In the home all male members of the family are gathered once per
year for the solemn feeding of the ancestors.76 The Confucian sense of duty is the
motivating aspect in this ritual, but the spirits are believed to partake in the event. In this
model only male ancestors who in life had male decedents to continue the line are
venerated. Also, anyone who suffers a sudden catastrophic death is excluded from the
ritual because such events disrupt the social order.77
Although by this time Musok had come to be looked upon with contempt for
being nothing but superstition, it did serve a very vital role by complementing the
Confucian spiritual practices. All of the spirits who were being excluded from the rituals
were, by not meeting the ancestor prerequisites, believed in the common cultural
perspective to become angry, hungry ghosts.78 And in both Korean Confucianism and
Musok, these negative entities could potentially cause problems for the family. Even
though the educated Confucian practitioners looked down upon and openly insulted
Musok,79 the primarily female mudang were still widely called upon to solve the
problems caused by those improperly treated spirits. This tight relationship with
Confucianism also slightly changed Musok, as during this time the deities began to be
75 Ibid.. 1376 Ibid.. 8777 Ibid.. 5878 Hogarth, Syncretism, 22179 Ibid.. 217
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delineated through their position in a hierarchy which is still displayed today through
wearing Choson government officials’ clothing during possession.80
With the introduction and gradual cultural assimilation of both Buddhism and
Confucianism, Korean Shamanism has easily adapted and integrated many surface
elements. For example, the mudang switches her costume and the tone of the music to
satisfy different spirits and bend to varying occasions, and the Musok religion has picked
up new tools and props to meet the changing times. Integrating and inventing new deities
is a very common feature of shamanism in general as deities often specialize in one
disease or condition, and when a new disease appears, so too does a new god to counter
it.81 Throwing aside a few of the Siberian practices did not change the ideology or base
beliefs of the religion. But acting as the cosmological current running under the Korean
people’s beliefs throughout their history, Musok has altered some of the core Confucian
and Buddhist beliefs. From the very first decree in the Koguryo Kingdom to the present,
Koreans have used Buddhism primarily as a religion of prayer to bring about good luck,
make rain, create healing, and divine auspicious places and times. The quest for
enlightenment fell to the background in the shamanistic nation-protecting Buddhism of
Korea. The purpose of Confucianism has always been to build an organized society
around the principle of ritual propriety. In Korea, where the historical rituals are Musok
rituals, a prime element of this newly adapted Confucianism became the treatment of, and
care, for the ancestor spirits of the dead. And Daoism, which already fulfilled the same
shamanistic niche as Musok, simply died away. Though both Buddhism and
Confucianism have attempted to stand as exalted traditions, condemning Korea’s
80 Ibid.. 19381 Ibid.. 198
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“primitive” shaman roots, they were both unknowingly ensnared in the same
“superstitious” net by the collective foundational ideology of the Korean people.
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