초록 열기/닫기 버튼
Over the last two decades the claim that the monk Maranan’ta (or Mālānanda), who transmitted Buddhism to Paekche, was originally from Gandhāra became widespread in both scholarly and Buddhist communities in Korea. It is also commonly known in Pakistan as a symbol of the long-standing cultural relationship between Korea and Pakistan in history. This article examines the evidence for this claim and attempts to clarify that it is unfortunately a sheer misconception. The literary evidence for Maranan’ta’s origin in Gandhāra is allegedly found in the Haedong kosŭngjŏn 海東高僧傳 by Kakhun (1215). It states that Maranant’a came to China from Zhuqian 竺乾. Noting that the character zhu 竺 is part of a common appellation used for India in ancient China, Tianzhu 天竺, and that the character qian 乾 is the same one employed in a common Chinese transcription of the word Gandhāra, Qiantuoluo 乾陀羅, some scholars translated Zhuqian as “India or Gandhāra” or “Gandhāra of Tianzhu (India).” However, this is a downright mistake because Zhuqian means no other than India as a synonym of Tianzhu. It is clearly stated in Chinese Buddhist sources such as the Hongmingji 弘明集 (518) and the Zhenzhenglun 甄正論 (684-705). Especially, the Zhenzhenglun explains: “‘Qian 乾’ is ‘tian 天’ (heaven). Therefore, the two trigrams qian and kun 坤 symbolize heaven and earth in the Book of Changes. We can see here clearly that ‘qian’ means ‘tian.’ Later people, while copying, mistakenly placed the character zhu before the character qian.” The fact that Zhuqian is the same as Tianzhu in meaning is also confirmed in its usage in many other textual sources. Therefore, the Haedong kosŭngjŏn simply states that Maranant’a came from India, and the account has absolutely no reference to Gandhāra. In addition to the misreading of Zhuqian in the Haedong kosŭngjŏn, it has been suggested that the actual birthplace of Maranant’a is identified at a small town called Chota Lahor near Swabi in the Peshawar basin, ancient Gandhāra. Although the Korean scholar Min Hee Sik, who first claimed this attribution, alleges that the evidence is found in a French source, he has never been able to present it publicly. His small book From Gandhāra to Yŏnggwang published in 2001, probably the only work other than media reports that discusses this theory in publications, at least in a quasi-scholarly manner, amply shows that the assertion is most likely the creation of his sheer imagination. It is deplorable that the claim of Maranant’a’s origin in Gandhāra has been virtually established with no questioning in most of scholarly works on Paekche Buddhism and enthusiastically received by the Buddhist community in Korea. I hope that the misunderstanding will soon be straightened out and the embarrassing occurrences concerning Maranant’a will no longer persist.
키워드열기/닫기 버튼
Maranant’a (Mālānanda), Paekche Buddhism, Haedong kosŭngjŏn, Zhuqian, Gandhāra, Chota Lahor
