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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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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1986.

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Hogarth, Kim Hyu-key. Syncretism of Buddhism and Shamanism in Korea. New Jersey:

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