• (The) Research of the performance art and culture
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• no.43
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• pp.441-483
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• 2021

The introduction of dongbal[bara] is in line with Buddhism which was transmitted from India through China. Therefore, this paper tracked down the records of dongbal in Indian and Chinese Buddhism, and especially in scriptures and in ritual texts of Korean Buddhism, and studied the functionality and the use of dongbal, and the attributes of Baramu. Among the scriptures that record dongbal, 『Myobeopyeon hwagyeong(妙法蓮華經)』(A.D.406) is the earliest to be translated. The records of bara in the scriptures were written as dongbal(銅鈸) mostly, and that it was used as ritual tool(法具), instrumental offering, and religious ornament(莊嚴物). The oldest record which can verify that dongbal was used in Korea is 『Seodaesajajaeryugijang(西大寺資財流記帳)』(A.D.780). The oldest cymbals-like relic remaining today, the reliquary from the temple Gameunsa built in A.D.628, dates back to the early period of Unified Silla. This indicates that dongbal has been used at Korean temples by the 7th century at least. The records of dongbal(銅鈸) written in cheong-gyu(淸規, buddhist monastic rules) and ritual texts are classified as myeongbal(鳴鈸) and dongbal(動鈸). The letter 'myeong(鳴)' of myeongbal means to make a sound, and thus myeongbal refers to clash and make the sound of the bara. It is verified that myeongbal had certain established rules and methods. It appears that dongbal(動鈸) refers to Baramu(the cymbals dance) since the letter 'dong(動)' means movement or to move. Hence, the concept of movement was added to the signification of myeongbal, and became dongbal(動鈸), and then developed into baramu being transmitted until today. There are 8 types of Baramu transmitted in Korean Buddhist rituals, and they could be classified into purifying ritual, inviting ritual, protecting ritual, offering ritual, bathing ritual, dressing ritual, saluting ritual, and praising ritual according to their attributes.

• Journal of Christian Education in Korea
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• v.77
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• pp.127-150
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• 2024

This study seeks to shed light on the contributions of Horst Klaus Berg to German Bible didactics, underscoring the pivotal role of diverse interpretative approaches in the teaching and learning of the Bible. In an era where the complexities and intricacies of the Bible present significant challenges to contemporary readers, the prevalence of one-dimensional interpretations further obstructs the pathway to a profound comprehension of the spiritual depth embedded within its texts. By centering on Horst Klaus Berg's influential theories in the field of German Bible didactics, this research delves into the impact of varied biblical interpretations on Christian education. Berg's work is celebrated for its insightful strategies, notably his advocacy for comprehensive interpretative methods such as "Railway Tracks" and "Free-Learning." These approaches seek to reconcile traditional biblical teachings with individual experiences, thereby facilitating a more expansive understanding of the Bible's applicability to modern life. Through a detailed examination of Berg's theory on biblical interpretation, this paper argues that Christian education must prioritize the cultivation of diverse interpretative skills and their practical integration into Bible study. This educational model encourages learners to become active interpreters, capable of discerning the text's deep-seated meanings by relating it to their personal experiences. The study concludes by affirming Berg's delineation of three critical tasks in biblical interpretation: "reciprocal interpretation," "acknowledgment of the biblical texts' diversity," and "free learning." These elements are portrayed as interrelated and essential, reinforcing Berg's proposition that understanding the Bible's complexity and diversity is crucial for advancing Christian education. This paper offers a novel perspective on the significance of embracing multifaceted interpretations within the domain of biblical studies.

• Journal of Science of Art and Design
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.61-86
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• 2008

Buddhism and Buddhist art originated in India, but when they were introduced to different countries, they created an international environment. Buddhism was introduced as cultural package, with written texts, visual images, rituals, and the organization of monasteries. Buddhist art originated in India during the reign of King Asoka and then was developed under the political, intellectual, artistic, religious, social and natural environments of the regions. The stupa and the chaitya halls create monastic environment. The natural environment of the trade routes and caravans in the Central Asian deserts preserved brilliant-colored murals and helped spread tram India to China. When Buddhism and Buddhist art were introduced to China, Korea, and Japan, Buddhism became a part of government institution and social organization. Gigantic statues were carved in caves in mountains for political purposes. The Chinese transformed the stupa into a square pillar and created pagodas with tiled roofs in tower forms. Koreans not only transmitted the Buddhist art from China to Japan, but it also changed it with originality in the iconography of the pensive bodhisattva images and in the architecture of Seoggulam. The official ideology of Neo Confucian philosophy brought the rise of Chan Buddhism. Zen monasteries in Japan created unique environments by establishing the Zen Buddhist garden. to prompt believers to meditate. An important development in Buddhist art is the Esoteric Buddhist art in China and Tibet. This category belongs to the intellectual, religious as well as artistic environments. The Tibetan deities with consorts in their embrace symbolize the union of the god and the devotees. Buddhist art created a unique environment that was spread out to many nations and changed greatly over time.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.50
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• pp.483-507
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• 2018

Shylock in Shakespeare's play, The Merchant of Venice has been considered as either a devilish villain, or as a victim who was persecuted unfairly by the Christian society in Venice. By focusing on the matter of the Other, which has been summarily overlooked in literary texts and the literary criticism, it is noted that the New Historical and Cultural criticism interpreted Shylock as the racial, religious, and economic Other in the Venetian society which at the time was dominated by Christian ideals. The purpose of this paper is to show how Shylock becomes an abjected Other, that is, the abject, based on Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection. According to Kristeva, an abjection is the process of expulsion of otherness from society, through which the subject or the nation tries to set up clear boundaries and establish a stable identity. Shylock is marginalized and abjected by the borders drawn by the Venetian Christian society, which in a strong sense tries to protect its identity and homogeneity by rejecting and excluding any unclean or improper otherness. The borders include the two visible borders like the Ghetto and the red hats worn by the Jews, and one invisible border in the religious and economic fields. By asking for one pound of Antonio's flesh when he can't pay back 3,000 ducats owed, Shylock tries to cross the border between Christians and Jews. Portia frustrates Shylock's desire to violate the border by presenting a different interpretation of the expression, 'one pound of flesh,' from Shylock's interpretation. And in doing so she expels him back to his original position of abject.

• Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
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• v.34
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• pp.107-139
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• 2020

This paper primarily focuses on the highest deity, the Upper Thearch of the Nine Heavens (officially translated as 'The Supreme God of the Ninth Heaven'), in the Korean new religious movement (NRM) Daesoon Jinrihoe and the true minister of the myriad spirits in the Taiwanese NRM, Yiguan Dao, the Upper Thearch of Manifest Luminosity. As the two both serve as highly representative "Upper Thearch" beliefs in emerging NRMs, I attempt a comparative analysis of the source of these beliefs, their characteristics, and the links that exist between them. On the basis of ancient Chinese classics and Daoist texts, along with Daesoon Jinrihoe's scriptures and works from Yiguan Dao's Canon, I try to understand the distinguishing features of cosmological ideas from both religious movements. For example, because the Upper Thearch of the Nine Heavens could not bear to see the human realm growing ever more disordered and in order to improve worldly conditions, he traveled to the harmonized realm of deities, and therefore descended into the world to make a great itineration and enlighten the people through his teachings. In the end, he came to Korea and was reborn as Kang Jeungsan (secular name: Kang Il-Sun) in Gaekmang Village. In the Human Realm, he spread his transformative teachings to the people which were later became the doctrines of the Virtuous Concordance of Yin and Yang, Harmonious Union between Divine Beings and Human Beings, the Resolution of Grievances for Mutual Beneficence, and Perfected Unification (jingyeong 真境) with the Dao. Yiguan Dao; however, explains that the source of humanity is the "Heaven of Principle" (Litian 理天), and people are "Buddha's Children of the Original Embryo" (Yuantai Fozi 原胎佛子), created by the Upper Thearch of Manifest Luminosity, who came to world to govern and impart spiritual refinement, before returning to his native place in the Heaven of Principle. Yet, because he became infatuated with the world of mortals, he forgot the path of his return. Therefore, the Eternal Mother sent Maitreya Buddha, the Living Buddha Jigong 濟公, and the Bodhisattva of Moon Wisdom (Yuehui pusa 月慧菩薩) to descend to the human world and teach the people, so that they may acknowledge the Eternal Mother as the root of return, achieve their return to the origin, and go back to the home of the Eternal Mother in the Heaven of Principle. Both Daesoon Jinrihoe and Yiguan Dao refer to their highest deity, the true ministers of the myriad spirits, with the simple title "Upper Thearch." This phenomenon also has some ties to God in the western Biblical tradition but also has some key differences. In investigating the sources of these two deities, we find that they likely took shape during the Yinshang (殷商) period and have some relationship to the Upper Thearch of Chinese antiquity. The questions raised in this research are quite interesting and deserving of deeper comparative study.

• Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
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• v.35
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• pp.295-330
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• 2020

This paper examines the current state of the field wherein theoretical issues of ecology are still in need of concentration. Ecological texts are reconsidered from a religious worldview by extracting eco-friendly notions within religion and discourse is also essential in the practical field. As a case study on this matter, this paper aims to describe various aspects of ecological theory in Daesoon Jinrihoe, a new religious movement in Korea. In short, in its view of the natural world, Daesoon Jinrihoe values that all things originated from the Supreme God who presides over them, and the two are organically interrelated. Hence, the principle of nature is cherished. Especially as the Later World draws near, the fundamental basis of nature is slated to undergo change, and this also features heavily in Daesoon Jinrihoe's view of the natural world. Furthermore, the Supreme God reforms nature, and human beings live lives in conformity and resonance with that reformed nature. Above all else, the doctrines of haewon sangsaeng (the resolution of grievances for mutual beneficence) and boeun sangsaeng (the reciprocation of favors for mutual beneficence) are advocated in Daesoon Jinrihoe. Each supports its own form of ecological discourse, and together, they can be called Sangsaeng Ecological Theory (the Ecological Theory of Mutual Beneficence). Specific discussions of Daesoon Jinrihoe and ecology should be considered in light of this finding.

• Journal of Daesoon Thought and the Religions of East Asia
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.41-59
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• 2022

Caodaism is a new religion from Vietnam which began in late 1925 and spread rapidly across the French colony of Indochina. With a broad syncretic aim, the new faith sought to revivify Vietnamese religious traditions whilst also incorporating religious, literary, and spiritist influences from France. Like Catholicism, Caodaism kept a strong focus on its monotheistic nature and today Caodaists are eager to label their religion a monotheism. It will be argued here, however, that the syncretic nature of this new faith complicates this claim to a significant degree. To make this argument, we will consider here the nature of God in Caodaism through two central texts from two important stages in the life of the religion. The first is the canonized Compilation of Divine Messages which collects a range of spirit messages from God and some other divine voices. These were received in the early years of the faith. The second is a collection of sermons from 1948/9 that takes Caodaist believers on a tour of heaven, and which is entitled The Divine Path to Eternal Life. It will be shown that in the first text, God speaks in the mode of a fully omnipotent and omniscient supreme being. In the second text, however, we are given a view of paradise that is much more akin to the court of a Jade Emperor within an East Asian milieu. In these realms, the personalities of other beings and redemptive mechanisms claim much of our attention, and seem to be a competing center of power to that of God. Furthermore, God's consort, the Divine Mother, takes on a range of sacred creative prerogatives that do something similar. Additionally, cadres of celestial administrators; buddhas, immortals, and saints help with the operation of a cosmos which spins on with guidance from its own laws. These laws form sacred mechanisms, such as cycles of reincarnation and judgement. These operate not in the purview of God, but as part of the very nature of the cosmos itself. In this context, the dualistic, polytheistic, and even automatic nature of Caodaism's cosmos will be considered in terms of the way in which they complicate this religion's monotheistic claims. To conclude, this article seeks to demonstrate the precise relevance of the term 'monotheism' for this religion.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.57 no.4
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• pp.5-24
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• 2023

In ancient Egypt, temples were not only religious sanctuaries but also community centers. One of the core spaces created in the temple is the facility where priests and scribes copied and preserved texts on papyrus and other media. Its common designation was 'pr-mḏȝ'(House of Books) and the 'per-(nw)-seshw'(House of Scrolls). The general term used during that time was 'Per Ankh', and the modern term for it is 'temple library'. Therefore, this study first identified the character and identity of the Per Ankh attached to the temple, and then traced whether it is appropriate to designate 'healing place of the souls' depicted on the hypostyle hall(Per Ankh) in the Ramesseum(mortuary temple) built by Ramses II of the New Kingdom as a library. As a result, Per Ankh, a hieroglyph combining the Per(house) and Ankh(life), was revealed to be a multi-purpose complex facility consisting of a learning and research center, a treatment and healing center with medical facilities and sanatoriums, a religious ceremony and a center for the celebration of eternal life, a scriptorium and a library. Therefore, the traditional argument that Per Ankh refers to a library cannot be justified. In the same context, the inscription 'Ψυχῆς ἰατρεῖον' on the doorplate of the hypostyle hall of the Ramesseum, which was first introduced by Greek historian Hecataeus of Miletus in the 4th century BC, was translated into Latin as 'Psychēs Iatreion' by Diodorus Siculus in the 1st century BC and described as the motto of the sacred library. However, Psyche is the goddess of Greek and Roman mythology, and Iatreion means hospital(clinic, healing center) and pharmacy, so Per Ankh in the Ramesseum is a space to heal the soul of the pharaoh (Ka). Therefore, 'Psychēs Iatreion = library' is a distortion and a mistranslation. It is not the motto of the library, but a metaphor for the Per Ankh.

• The Critical Review of Religion and Culture
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• no.32
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• pp.257-287
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• 2017

It seems to be quite an ambitious endeavor to trace back the translation history of Catholic Vulgate Bible from Latin language to Asian languages since 16th century. I try to bring out the translation(translative) procedure of Latin Bible to the Chinese Version, which is eventually come up (and the latter)to the Korean Version. It has been supported and funded by the National Research Foundation of Korea. This task has a three-year plan. For the first step(operation), I examined and searched the European situation of the Vulgate Bible in the Catholic Church, i.e. the ritual use of Vulgate Bible in the Mass and the religious retreat. The liturgical texts, to begin with, were analysed to disclose how the Vulgate Bible was reflected in them. The Lectionary and the Evangeliary were the typical ones. The structure or the formation system of the Lectionaries for Mass was based on the liturgical year cycle. From this point, the Vulgate Bible was rooted in the religious life of European Catholics after the Council of Trent which had proclaimed the Vulgate to be authentic source of the Revelation, therefore, to be respected as the only authoritative Bible. How did the Catholic Church use the Vulgate Bible out of the context and the boundary (sphere) of liturgy? The Meditation guide books for the purpose of instructing the religious retreat was published and (diffused) circulated among the priests, the religious persons and even the laymen. In those books also were included (found) the citation, the interpretation and the commentaries of the Vulgate Bible. The most of the devotees in Europe read the biblical phrases out of the meditation guide books. There are still remained the unsolved problems of how to understand (for understanding) the actual aspect of the Vulgate Bible in the European Catholic Church. All the Biblical verses were translated into French and included in the meditation guide books published in France. What did the Holy See think the French translation of the Vulgate Bible? Unfortunately, there were not found the Vatican Decrees about the European translation of the Vulgate Bible. The relationship between the Vulgate Bible and the Meditation guide (Those) will be much important for the study of Chinese translation of it. The search for the Decrees and the researches on it and the European and the non-European translations of the Vulgate Bible will be a continuous task for me as well as the other researchers on these subjects in the future.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.1103-1122
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• 2009

In this essay, I compare the ways in which the mid-thirteenth century English romance, Floris and Blancheflour, represents relationships of the Spanish pagan queen to her adoptive Christian daughter who becomes her daughter-in-law, with the ways in which Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale and other so-called Constance romances delineate relationships between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law. What draws me into these romances is the fact that they both convey the intergenerational relationships of women. However, the texts become distinct from each other in the way in which each depicts women characters and their relationships with one another. In this paper, I argue that the level of intimacy that the mother-in-law figure has with the daughter-in-law figure plays a defining role in making the former perform her agency for or against the latter. In the Man of Law's Tale and other Constance romances, the daughter-in-law figure is in every sense an alien or 'outsider' to the mother-in-law figure. To the contrary, Blancheflour in Floris is a sort of 'insider' to the queen because they lived in the same household for fourteen years-ever since the girl's birth. The queen, therefore, should have a high degree of intimacy with Blancheflour. I argue that the pagan queen's intimacy to the daughter of a Christian-European captive has enabled the queen to protect the girl as her adoptive daughter first and as a daughter-in-law second, namely contributing to her unreserved endorsement of the inter-racial-religious-class union between her only son, Floris, and Blancheflour. This is one major factor that distinguishes the relationship of the queen and Blancheflour in Floris from the dysfunctional relationships of mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law in the late medieval Constance romances, where women of different generations are strangers to each other, and no way is imagined for women of different races and religions to get along with each other.