Earticle

This paper traces the process how Confucianism was established as a state ideology in Vietnam. Confucianism is said to have first been introduced into Vietnam around the early 3rd century. However, it had been outshone by Buddhism until the 1389s when Ho Quy Ly rose to power and emphasized pre-Qin Confucianism. In 1428, Le^ Loi founded a new dynasty and changed the state ideology from Buddhism to Confucianism. Despite this radical shift, however, Confucianism was not firmly established at the beginning of the Le^ Dynasty. It was Le^ Thanh Tong (1460-1497) who fully established neo-Confucianism as the state ideology. The reason was that he devoted himself to the study of Confucian texts from a young age and sought to strengthen his own royal authority by emphasizing the neo- Confucian concept of loyalty and filial piety.

The state-sangha relations in the countries of Theravada Buddhism has often been described as a mutually dependent patron-client relation in which the state and the sangha support each other by performing their due roles. Yet this theory involves a normative dimension that prescribes such a relation as the ideal in the Buddhist world. The explanatory power of this theory hence is hampered in a country where the ideal is not fully realized. In the wake of tumultuous political upheaval where political rivals vie for the state the ideal as well as the theory are put into a trial. The tragic history of modern Cambodia is a history of ceaseless conflict in which multiple contenders for the state had to define their relations with the sangha. The relations defined turned out less mutual than supposed. The state-sangha relations were rather unilaterally dependent. More often than not the sangha was subject to state control with no power to confront the state or coopted only to become a tool for political propaganda and manipulation. The sangha always played the role of client, waiting for the state to define the relation and to be benevolent. Even when the monks were forced to disrobe and when the sangha itself was annihilated, all they did was to wait for another patron state that would put the sangha back in place. The state-sangha relations the Cambodian history reveals were not close to one in which the two parties benefit each other on an equal basis. It was a patron-client relationship in which the client sangha had to be heavily dependent on the patron state. Such a unilaterally dependent relationship is the one that has prevailed in Cambodia.

Malay society is rooted on the Islamic concept. That Islam influenced every corner of that Malay society which had ever been an edge of the civilizations of the Indus and Ganges. Once the letters of that Hindu religion namely Sanscrit was adopted to this Malay society for the purpose of getting the Malay language, that is, Bahasa Melayu down to the practical literation but in vain. The Sanscrit was too complicated for Malay society to imitate and put it into practice in everyday life because it was totally different type of letters which has many of the similar allographs for a sound. In the end Malay society gave it up and just used the Malay language without using any letters for herself. After a few centuries Islam entered this Malay society with taking Arabic letters. It was not merely influencing Malay cultures, but to the religious life according to wide spread of that Islam. Finally Arabic letters was to the very means that Malay language was written by. It means that Arabic letters had been used for Arabic language in former times, but it became a similar form of letters for a new language which was named as Malay language. This Arabic letters for Arabic language has no problems whereas Arabic letters for Malay language has some of it. Naturally speaking, arabic letters was not designed for any other language but just for Arabic language itself. On account of this, there occurred a few problems in writing Malay consonants, just like p, ng, g, c, ny and v. These 6 letters could never be written down in Arabic letters. Those 6 ones were never known before in trying to pronounce by Arab people. Therefore, Malay society had only to modify a few new forms of letters for these 6 letters which had frequently been found in their own Malay sounds. As a result, pa was derived from fa, nga was derived from ain, ga was derived from kaf, ca was derived from jim, nya was derived from tha or ba, and va was derived from wau itself. Where must these 6 newly modified letters be put on this Arabic keyboard? This is the very core of this working paper. As a matter of course, these 6 letters were put on the place where 6 Arabic signs which were scarecely written in Malay language. Those 6 are found when they are used only in the ‘shift-key-using-letters.’ These newly designed 6 letters were put instead of the original places of fatha, kasra, damma, sukun, tanween and so on. The main differences between the 2 set of 6 letters are this: 6 in Arabic orginal keyboard are only signs for Arabic letters, on the other hand 6 Malay’s are real letters. In others words, 6 newly modified Malay letters were substituted for unused 6 Arabic signs in Malay keyboard. This type of newly designed Malay Jawi Script keyboard is still used in Malaysia, Brunei and some other Malay countries. But this sort of keyboard also needs to go forward to find out another way of keyboard system which is in accordance with the alphabetically ordered keyboard system. It means that alif is going to be typed for A key, and zai shall be typed when Z key is pressed. This keyboard system is called ‘Malay Jawi-English Rumi matching keyboard system’, even though this system should probably be inconvenient for Malay Jawi experts who are good at Arabic ‘alif-ba-ta’order.

완나부미(Suvannabhumi, 황금의 땅)는 인도상인, 황금탐험가, 모험가, 선교사, 그리고 여러 나라에서 온 사람들이 자주 드나들었던 매우 오래된 지역이었다. 그러나 현재의 수완나부미는 잊혀진 존재이다. 그로 인해, 이 지역이 어디서 번성했는지, 언제 생겨났는지, 역사적으로 얼마나 오래 존재했는지에 대해서 정확하게 아는 사람은 없다. 따라서 현대인에게 이 지역은 여전히 알 수 없는 수수께끼 같은 곳이다. 이 논문은 다양한 문학적 문헌(빨리문헌과 해제, 옛 인도의 논문, 근대 인도학자들의 글, Dvipavansa와 Mahavansa라 불리는 두 가지의 유명한 신할라족 연대기, 일부 중국측 기록과 번역본, 일부 아랍상인과 작가들의 기록, 미얀마의 전통적 연대기와 근대 미얀마 학자들의 주장)에서 발췌한 수완나부미에 대한 여러 내용들을 소개하기 위한 하나의 노력이다. 이러한 자료의 검토와 더불어 필자의 소견을 결론부분에 덧붙였다.

붓다고사(Buddhaghosa)는 불교승려이자 작가로써 상좌부불교에서 가장 뛰어난 승려로 유명하다. 그는 청결을 의미하는 Visudhimagga의 작가로서도 유명한데, 이 작품들은 정전(正典)문학의 백과사전이라 불리고 있으며, 담마의 다양한 보물 컬렉션이라 할 수 있다. 붓다고사는 Visuddhi의 순결함에 도달하기 위해 magga 형식을 설명하고 있고, 불교교리 전체를 조직적으로 설명하고 있다. 붓다고사는 스리랑카어로 쓰여진 atthakathā를 Magadyhi(빨리어)로 변역했다. 이러한 업적으로 그는 명예를 얻었고, 이 작품은 상좌부불교(Theravāda)를 연구하는 학자들 사이에서 신성한 텍스트로 여겨졌다. 최초의 붓다고사에 관한 전기문은 6세기에 쓰여진 Mahavamsa에 나타난다. 마하밤사에 따르면, 그는 큰 보리수가 있는 인도 마가다국에서 브라만으로 태어났다고 전해진다. 그러나 Buddhaghosa의 atthakathā를 연구한 Kosanbi박사는 붓다고사는 북인도로부터 온 인물은 아니라고 보았으며, 붓다고사가 미얀마 사람일지도 모른다고 추정했다. 그 이유는 다수의 atthakathā가 미얀마에서 발견되었기 때문이다. 미얀마뿐만 아 니라, 태국 그리고 캄보디아 역시 붓다고사가 자국인이라고 주장하고 있다. 5세기부터 더 나아가 11세기 중반까지 하(下) 미얀마의 고대 쀼왕국에서 불교가 매우 번성했다는 지속적인 기록이 있다. 이는 5세기에 붓다고사 전설과 함께 불교를 활성화시켰으며, 상좌부불교와 관련된 조각품들과 비문을 연구하는데 반영되었다. 붓다고사의 자타카 해설은 붓다의 역사적 탄생을 다루고 있으며, 미얀마의 모든 청소년에게 오랫동안 교육자료로 활용되어 왔다. 또한 자타카 해설은 비석에서 중요한 부분을 차지하고 있으며, 테라코타 부조나 11세기와 12세기의 버간사원의 벽화에서도 사용된다. 이처럼 미얀마에서 비석과 테라코타 부조, 그리고 수많은 벽화들이 발견되는 것을 통해 붓다고사가 미얀마 출신이었다는 것을 확인할 수 있다.