Culture |
ANDONG, North Gyeongsang Province-Hitting the books was not enough because of their insatiable passion to learn more, and they hit the road in search of the historical origin of Korea's philosophical and cultural premises. Chartering two buses, 68 foreign scholars and students of Korean culture and history or the language recently traveled four and a half hours to the outlying North Gyeongsang Province town of Andong, the bastion of Korea's Confucian scholarship during its dynastic past. Specifically, their field trip was intended to check out famous Confucian academies that offer historic vestiges of some of Korea's most prominent Confucian thinkers during the Joseon period: Dosan Seowon of Yi Hwang, Byeongsan Seowon of Ryu Seong-ryong and Oksan Seowon of Yi Eon-jeok. Seowon refers to private Confucian academies as opposed to state-built schools known as "hyangyak." Arriving at Dosan Seowon, Mark Peterson, professor of Korean history at Brigham Young University in Utah, said in Korean to the sheer excitement of the inquisitive field trippers: "You can say that this place is where Korean Confucianism was born." Prof. Peterson, who volunteered to offer comments to the foreigners who came from 23 countries around the world at the invitation of the Korea Foundation, continued in his clear Korean language to explain the historic significance of the school where great Korean scholar Yi Hwang (1500-1571) strove to nurture disciples. Known by his penname of Toegye, Yi is one of Korea's greatest sages and masters of Neo- Confucianism. "Yi Hwang was the very picture of ideality and true Confucian scholars who lived up to the lofty principle of Confucianism - being humble, loyal and compassionate," the professor said, standing before the 10-meter-long small, intrepid cottage Toegye taught his disciples during his lifetime. "The Korean people, who put great emphasis on education, pay homage to this great educator and philosopher by using him and this school as the main theme for the 1,000 won note," Prof. Peterson said. According to him, the
Korean currency best captures Toegye's philosophy in
its design. In order to carry on the legacy of Toegye's high-spirited ideals after his death, his disciples honored him in 1574 by extending the small cottage to become a full-fledged academy with the addition of the main lecture hall, dormitories and the shrine devoted to Toegye. "If the Korean government had featured with greater interest the nearby buildings of better construction styles or bigger sizes he had nothing to do with, he might toss and turn in his tomb, feeling very offended and insulted," Prof. Peterson said in a meaningful joke. Private academies had existed from the end of Goryeo, but schools like the seowon that were also shrines dedicated to worthies of an earlier period appeared for the first time then. When Yi Hwang (1501-1570) became the magistrate of nearby town Punggi, his memorial to the court persuaded the king to bestow on it a hanging board inscribed in the king's own hand, becoming the first of the so-called royally chartered private academies. In the footsteps of Yi Hwang, Joseon Confucianism witnessed great success from the mid-16th century in the theorization of its tenets in this period. The theorization included various philosophical topics such as the concept of "taegeuk" or the Great Ultimate, the problems of 'li' and 'ki' or the basic forms of being in cosmos, and the related problems involving the mind and human nature. "Toegye was the foremost thinker in the philosophy of 'li,' which is like energy to create objects or natural phenomena in the universe," Donald Baker, professor of Korean philosophy at the University of British Columbia in Canada, commented at the site. Being the author of "The Sourcebook of Korean Civilization" and "The Confucian Confrontation With Catholicism in 18th-century Korea," Prof. Baker was invited to the field trip along with 18 other professors and doctoral students who are members of the Foundation's Korean Studies Fellowship for this year. However, Toegye's idea ran counter to another trend built on the 'ki' concept and touched off philosophical debates to raise the level of the study of Confucianism in general and the Koreanization of Confucianism, Prof. Baker explained. Yi Yul-gok, the main exponent of the 'ki' school, is featured on the 5,000 won note of Korean currency. Seowon sprang up everywhere and by the end of King Seonjo's reign in 1608 they already numbered more than 100. The number of royally chartered seowon also increased at the same time, and it soon became a matter of course for the state to bestow on them grants of books, tax-free lands and slaves. Thus the seowon came to occupy a position in Joseon society very much like that enjoyed by the Buddhist temples in the Goryeo period, historians note. In 1871, Regent Daewongun of King Gojong closed all but 47 of the hundreds of Confucian academies that had constituted a major political threat to the government while enjoying the tax and corvee exemption during the late period of Joseon, heralding the downfall of Confucianism as a dominant governing principle of the state. After an hour of on-site lectures at the Dosan school, the foreign visitors were given the chance to pay homage to Toegye before the tablet of the great Confucian thinker at his shrine located on the highest locale in the compound. Of particular note is that the administration officials of the historic site allowed the female members of the traveling party to take part in the ceremony for the first time for the "educational" purpose of foreign students. According to Confucian tradition, however, women are not allowed to participate in all ancestral worship ceremonies, officials said. "It is not a very good feeling to know about such a sexist tradition, but I can respect it as a vestige of the time-honored traditions in Confucianism," said Batdelger Norovnyam, professor of Korean studies at National University of Mongolia. Wrapping up their visit to Dosan Seowon, the traveling party moved to Byeongsan Seowon and Oksan Seowon located in nearby towns and learned about the central figures that gave rise to these private schools - Ryu Seong-ryong (1542-1607), noted Confucian scholar and the prime minister during the Hideyoshi Invasion of Korea, as well as Confucian scholar Yi Eon-jeok (1491-1553), the academic master of Toegye. At these legs of the field trip, in particular, the foreign students and scholars sat down with the direct descendants of these Korean philosophers and discussed what it means to carry on the Confucian tradition from their ancestors and the role of Confucianism in today's Korean society. "We have come to gain a tangible picture of Korean Confucianism by eyewitnessing its historical roots and strong power that still constitutes a pillar of Korean society," said Ernesto de Laurentis, secretary at the Spanish Center of Korean Studies in Madrid. (khjack@koreaherald.co.kr) By Choe Yong-shik Staff reporter / 2001.06.11 |
