Chaeon was a literary scholar and national master of the Yugu Kingdom in the 18th century. He is very important to get a better understanding of that kingdom. Thoughts that Chaeon developed are very significant from the dimension of East Asia as well ...
Chaeon was a literary scholar and national master of the Yugu Kingdom in the 18th century. He is very important to get a better understanding of that kingdom. Thoughts that Chaeon developed are very significant from the dimension of East Asia as well as the kingdom. In other words, his thoughts are important to know how the then Chinese thoughts and literary trends influenced the intellects of Joseon and Yugu at that time. Since Joseon and Yugu made exchanges with each other in that period, ideas from Chaeon who was one of the powerful in the then Yugu deserve to be noticed. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to consider Chaeon’s thoughts of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism which are implied in 『Saong Pyeoneon』 written by him.
The findings of the study can be summarized as follows. Chaeon’s ideas implied in 『Saong Pyeoneon』 suggest that he respected and worshiped Confucianism as an orthodox discipline, supported by his sayings like ‘Since all people of the whole world were taught from Confucianism, no one is better than Confucianists to be master for that world’ or ‘The universe can never exist even for one day without Confucianism’. Concerning Buddhists, Chaeon recognized the basic doctrines of Buddhism that are about Buddha’s awakening of the public. However, he disagreed on the Buddhist view of afterlife, that is, dichotomy between the heaven and the hell. Chaeon attributed this problem to people studying Buddhism. Meanwhile, Chaeon criticized Taoists as heretics for speculating on personal things rather than the law of nature, talking about futility, dazzling the public with pedantic words and turning their deaf ears to courtesy and manners.