This thesis aims to understand the correlation between the representation of Confucian cultural orthodoxy in the Royal Capital City and the transformation of shamanic culture in the Chosun Dynasty. To Confucianists, the Royal Capital City, present-day...
This thesis aims to understand the correlation between the representation of Confucian cultural orthodoxy in the Royal Capital City and the transformation of shamanic culture in the Chosun Dynasty. To Confucianists, the Royal Capital City, present-day Seoul, was the center of Confucian culture. Confucianists sought to establish Seoul as the center of virtuous Confucian rule. Confucian cultural orthodoxy defined the geographic extent of Seoul from their religious view.
It appears that Confucianism built up cultural identity through exclusion non-confucian cultures (Buddhism, Taoism, Shamanism, etc.). Throughout the Chosun period, in order to preserve the cultural and religious symbolic meaning of Seoul, Confucianism regarded non-confucian cultures as wrong ways (left ways) and excessive rites (improper rites), and drove them from the Royal Capital by means of legal systems. Musok (Korean shamanism) was the very representative religious culture that was criticized and suppressed by Confucianism. Through control over shamans and shamanism, Confucianism sought to maintain the cultural purity and sacredness of Seoul.
As Seoul developed and expanded, the policies of sacralization of the Royal Capital City have changed. First, in the first half of the Chosun dynasty, shamans were forbidden to enter the walled city by law as prescribed in Kyongkukdaejon (經國大典). At this time, the boundary of sacralization of Seoul was limited within the city wall (都城內). Second, in the second half of the Chosun dynasty, Confucian government applied more strict legal sanction against Musok religious culture to the distance of 4 kilometers from the city wall (城外十里) as the provision of Sokdaejon (續大典). Finally, in the late eighteenth century, the region of sacralization of Seoul extended to well beyond the Han River (江外), according to the provision Daejontongpyon (大典通編). Chosun government was able to completely expel the shamans and shaman cultures from all parts of Seoul.
Legal systems behind control over Musok were not only oppressions of heresy, non-orthodoxy, other religious tradition but also expressions of the Confucian culture in Seoul. Through this analysis of change and characteristic of legal systems for preserving the Royal Capital City, one can understand both religious consciousness of Seoul and history of correlation between Confucianism and Musok.