Dedicatory Inscriptions on the Amitabha Buddha and Maitreya Bodhisattva Sculptures of Gamsansa Temple (감산사(甘山寺) 아미타불상(阿彌陁佛像)과 미륵보살상(彌勒菩薩像) 조상기(造像記)의 연구)
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- MISULJARYO - National Museum of Korea Art Journal
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- v.98
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- pp.22-53
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- 2020
This paper analyzes the contents, characteristics, and historical significance of the dedicatory inscriptions (josanggi) on the Amitabha Buddha and the Maitreya Bodhisattva statues of Gamsansa Temple, two masterpieces of Buddhist sculpture from the Unified Silla period. In the first section, I summarize research results from the past century (divided into four periods), before presenting a new perspective and methodology that questions the pre-existing notion that the Maitreya Bodhisattva has a higher rank than the Amitabha Buddha. In the second section, through my own analysis of the dedicatory inscriptions, arrangement, and overall appearance of the two images, I assert that the Amitabha Buddha sculpture actually held a higher rank and greater significance than the Maitreya Bodhisattva sculpture. In the third section, for the first time, I provide a new interpretation of two previously undeciphered characters from the inscriptions. In addition, by comparing the sentence structures from the respective inscriptions and revising the current understanding of the author (chanja) and calligrapher (seoja), I elucidate the possible meaning of some ambiguous phrases. Finally, in the fourth section, I reexamine the content of both inscriptions, differentiating between the parts relating to the patron (josangju), the dedication (josang), and the prayers of the patrons or donors (balwon). In particular, I argue that the phrase "for my deceased parents" is not merely a general axiom, but a specific reference. To summarize, the dedicatory inscriptions can be interpreted as follows: when Kim Jiseong's parents died, they were cremated and he scattered most of their remains by the East Sea. But years later, he regretted having no physical memorial of them to which to pay his respects. Thus, in his later years, he donated his estate on Gamsan as alms and led the construction of Gamsansa Temple. He then commissioned the production of the two stone sculptures of Amitabha Buddha and Maitreya Bodhisattva for the temple, asking that they be sculpted realistically to reflect the actual appearance of his parents. Finally, he enshrined the remains of his parents in the sculptures through the hole in the back of the head (jeonghyeol). The Maitreya Bodhisattva is a standing image with a nirmanakaya, or "transformation Buddha," on the crown. As various art historians have pointed out, this iconography is virtually unprecedented among Maitreya images in East Asian Buddhist sculpture, leading some to speculate that the standing image is actually the Avalokitesvara. However, anyone who reads the dedicatory inscription can have no doubt that this image is in fact the Maitreya. To ensure that the sculpture properly embodied his mother (who wished to be reborn in Tushita Heaven with Maitreya Bodhisattva), Kim Jiseong combined the iconography of the Maitreya and Avalokitesvara (the reincarnation of compassion). Hence, Kim Jiseong's deep love for his mother motivated him to modify the conventional iconography of the Maitreya and Avalokitesvara. A similar sentiment can be found in the sculpture of Amitabha Buddha. To this day, any visitor to the temple who first looks at the sculptures from the front before reading the text on the back will be deeply touched by the filial love of Kim Jiseong, who truly cherished the memory of his parents.
This study quantitatively explored the interrelationship between water features and surrounding waterscape elements through a literature review and observational study targeting nine waterscapes of Suzhou Classical Garden in Jiangsu Province, China, which is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The purpose was to understand the objective characteristics of classical Chinese gardens and seek a basis for their differences from Korean gardens. The average area of water space in Suzhou gardens was 1,680.7㎡, which accounted for 21.3% of the total garden area, showing large variation by garden. Most of the Suzhou Gardens use springs and wells as their water sources. The Surging Waves Pavillion uses surface water, and Retreat & Reflection Garden uses seasonal water as its water source. The water pipes in Suzhou Garden are divided into a water outlet and a water outlet(water holes). Of these, the water outlet is a water outlet that imitates the water outlet just to induce a visual effect, and focuses on the meaning of the water system. It is judged to have been combined with the trend of Suzhou gardens. In addition, it was confirmed that, semantically, the arrangement of the water polo in Suzhou Garden is based on the traditional 'Gamyeo(堪輿) theory'. Meanwhile, there are five types of methods for bringing water to Suzhou Garden: Jiginbeop(直引法), Myeonggeobeop(明渠法), Invasionbeop(滲透法), Gwandobeop(管道法), and Chakjeongbeop(鑿井法). Suzhou Classical Garden mainly applies the infiltration method and the irrigation method as a method of securing water in the garden, which can be classified and defined as the water catchment method(集水法) and the water pulling method(引水法) in the domestic classification method. Among the watering techniques in Korean traditional gardens, watering methods such as 'suspension waterfall(懸瀑)', 'flying waterfall(飛瀑)' and water eluted(湧出), have not been found, and it is believed that they mainly 'rely on hide with dignity(姿逸)' and 'submerged current(潛流)' techniques. As for the watering technique, no watering technique was found that uses a Muneomi, which is applied in traditional Korean gardens. As this was applied, the seal method, penetration method, and Gwandobeop were also used in water extraction techniques. And at the inlet and outlet of Suzhou Garden, the main static water bodies were lakes, swamps, and dams. While the eastern water bodies are classified into streams, waterfalls, and springs, the water spaces in the three gardens reflect the centrifugal distributed arrangement, and the water spaces in the six places reflect the water landscape effect due to the centripetal concentrated arrangement. And as a water space landscape design technique, the techniques of 'Gyeok(隔)' and 'Pa(破)' were mainly applied at the inlet, and the techniques of 'Eom(隔)' and 'Pa(破)' were mainly applied at the outlet. For example, most bridges were built around the inlet, and sa(榭), heon(軒), gak(閣), pavilion(亭), and corridor(廊) were built, and the outlet was concealed with a stone wall. Therefore, it is understood to have embodied Suzhou Garden's idea of water(理水), which says, "Although it was created by humans, it is as if the sky is mine(雖由人作，宛自天開)."A trend was detected. Lastly, as a result of analyzing the degree of concealment and exposure in the visual composition of the inlet and outlet, it was confirmed that the water outlet was exposed only at the Eobijeong and Mountain Villa with Embracing Beauty view points of The Surging Waves Pavillion and the water outlet was hidden at other view points. Looking at these results, the 'Hyang-Hyang-Ba-Mi-Bob(向向發微法)' from the perspective of left-orientation theory of Feng Shui, which is applied in Korean traditional gardens in classical Chinese garden water management, "makes water visible as it comes in, but invisible as it goes out." It is judged that the technique was barely matched.
Today's consumers perceive consumption as a representation of themselves. It is not simply an act that fulfills a consumer's physical and practical needs. Even in terms of life quality, consumers increasingly want to achieve an emotional and sensible experience through consumption. Consumers now make decisions based on their need to express their position in relation to other people, pursue emotional satisfaction, and try to improve the quality of life. Culture-art products that meet such internal and external demands of consumers have made significant improvements in both quantity and quality, because of the social interest and policy support. The recognition of personal and social values of culture and arts has brought about interest in and need for culture-art products. Businesses have agilely embraced such change and actively implemented various marketing strategies utilizing culture and arts. For example, businesses began to sponsor artists who produce culture-art products while building facilities for cultural and art performances or exhibitions. Businesses have also provided performances and exhibitions free-of-charge or at affordable prices. As a result, the supply in the market has started to exceed its demand as is often the case in many of other markets. However, such imbalance has occurred not because of over-supply but because of a lack of demand. Given these circumstances, the government and culture and art related organizations, which had mainly concentrated on the supply side, started to recognize the importance of creating personal and social values in culture and arts. As a result, the government and various organizations are now creating various strategies that include policy measures to achieve their new found goal. Unfortunately however, such efforts are not meeting the expectations. Focusing on above-mentioned circumstances and problems, this study aims to find measures to create demand for culture-art products in the internal conditions of those who consume culture-art products. In other words, given that the demand for culture-art products has not increased despite all external conditions to encourage consumption, this study aims to find the reasons in consumers' value judgment on culture-art products. Though there were recent studies on culture-art products that applied consumer behavior on marketing theories, most of them focused on peripheral aspects such as people's motivation for or satisfaction from watching culture-art events. Hence, there is a need to understand what kind of value consumers perceive from culture-art products and how such value cognition leads to consumption in a comprehensive manner. This study acts as follow-up to a separate study entitled "Qualitative Study about Value Cognition and Benefits of Consumer on Culture-Art Products". The current study aims to extend practical implications that enhance the effectiveness of marketing strategies among the producing and policy agencies in the industry. The purpose of this study is to investigate dimensions of value cognition, benefits and attributes of culture-art products, and identify the effects of consumer value cognition on benefits and attributes. The questionnaire was developed based on the conceptual structure of qualitative research and previous researches. It was composed of value cognition, benefits, attributes of culture-art products and demographic variables. This survey was conducted on-line and off-line among a total of 662 persons ranging from their teens to their 50's who were living in Seoul, Gyeonggi-do, various metropolitan cities, and small and medium-sized cities. The data collected was analyzed by factor analysis and path analysis using SPSS WIN 18.0 and AMOS 16.0. This empirical study found that the dimensions of value cognition of culture-art products were categorized into personal goods, aesthetic goods and public property. This shows that the consumers perceive culture-art products as products that are worthy enough to pay the costs not just for personal benefits but also for their social values. Also the formation of value cognition for culture-art products requires special conditions unlike that for physical consumer goods and services, which simply require marketing stimuli. The dimensions of benefits pursued by consuming culture-art products were found to be composed of four types - pursuit of aesthetic benefits, pursuit of actual benefits, pursuit of emotional benefits, and pursuit of conspicuous character. This result implies that people consume culture-art products not just to pursue pleasure from emotional and intelligent satisfaction as well as social relations, but also to seek the needs and benefits embodied at a social level. The dimensions of attributes of culture-art products had seven different factors, - environmental, price, evaluation, people, artwork, composition, and personal relations - which is plentiful. This is because the attributes of culture-art products are very complicated compared to other consumer goods or services. Since culture-art products include not just cultural or artistic works but also all physical, human, environmental, and systemic elements of the products in a comprehensive manner, consumers perceive everything they experience in the process of consuming culture-art products as part of the products. The dimensions of value cognition was found to affect attributes of the products, mostly using pursued benefits as a mediating factors. This result is consistent with the result of qualitative research, and proves that applying the means-end chain theory in the reverse direction is reasonable. The result can be interpreted that consumers' value cognitions for culture-art products turns into actual benefits leading to consumers' decisions. Furthermore, this result reveals that when consumers choose culture-art products, they take into account the attributes of culture-art products depending on the benefits they pursue. These results confirm that despite their conceptual and abstract attributes, culture-art products have values that contribute to actual benefits for individual consumers and society. Hence, value cognition generates benefits to be pursued and this in turn affects the consumers' choices of attributes on products. Based on the conceptual structure of consumers' value cognitions on culture-art products and its dimensions, it is possible to find detailed methods to provide opportunities for education and training to form and reinforce positive value cognition on culture-art products. And through those methods, it will be possible to develop attributes of culture-art products according to the dimensions of pursued benefits, and allow conceptual products become the subject to valuable consumption in real life. These results provide theoretical understanding of consumer behavior in culture marketing and useful information to culture-art producers, companies that use culture and art, and government agencies that use culture-art as a mean to improve the public perception of quality of life. As a follow up on this study, there should be experimental studies that can develop criteria visualizing the demands of consumers who purchase culture-art products and identify their detailed attributes. Studies that compare characteristics of different areas within the culture-art product category and in-depth studies on a specific area or genre will also be needed. In order to develop marketing strategies for culture-art products, studies on the formation and reinforcement of positive value cognition on culture-art products and education for the development of consumer demand as well as on the development and differentiation of attributes of culture-art products depending on types of consumer groups should also follow.
This paper examines the relationship between celadon wine vessels and royal banquets by focusing on their unique forms. It explores the symbolism in their forms and designs and the changes that took place in the composition of these vessels. By examining the royal annals in Goryeosa (The History of the Goryeo Dynasty), the relation of celadon wine vessels and royal banquets is examined in terms of the number of banquets held in the respective reigns of the Goryeo kings, the number of banquets held by type, and the purpose of holding them. A royal banquet was a means of strengthening the royal authority by reinforcing the hierarchy and building bonds between the king and his vassals. It was also an act of ruling that demonstrated the king's authority and power through praise of his achievements and virtues. Royal banquets were held most often during the reigns of King Yejong (r. 1105-1122), King Uijong (r. 1146-1170), King Chungnyeol (r. 1274-1308), and King Gongmin (r. 1351-1374). Particular attention is paid here to the changes in the types and forms of celadon wine vessels that occurred starting in the reigns of King Yejong and King Chungnyeol, which is also the period in which the number of royal banquets increased and royal banquet culture evolved. The king and his subjects prayed for the king's longevity at royal banquets and celebrated peaceful reigns by drinking and performing various related acts. Thus, the visual symbolism of vessels for holding, pouring, or receiving alcohol were emphasized. Since the manner of drinking at a banquet was exchanges of pouring and receiving alcohol between the king and his subjects, the design of the ewers and cups had a significant visual impact on attendees. It can be seen, therefore, that decorating wine vessels with Daoist motifs such as the immortals, luan (a mythological bird), turtle dragons, fish dragons, and gourd bottles or with Confucian designs like hibiscus roots was intended as a visual manifestation of the purpose of royal banquets, which was to celebrate the king and to pray for both loyalty and immortality. In particular, the Peach Offering Dance (獻仙桃) and Music for Returning to the Royal Palace (還宮樂), which correspond to the form and design of celadon wine vessels, was examined. The lyrics of the banquet music embodied wishes for the king's longevity, immortality, and eternal youth as well as for the prosperity of the royal court and a peaceful reign. These words are reflected in wine vessels such as the Celadon Taoist Figure-shaped Pitcher housed in the National Museum of Korea and the Bird Shaped Ewer with Daoist Priest in the Art Institute of Chicago. It is important to note that only Goryeo celadon wine vessels reflect this facet of royal banquet culture in their shape and design. The composition of wine vessel sets changed depending on the theme of the banquet and the types of liquor. After Goryeo Korea was incorporated into the Mongol Empire, new alcoholic beverages were introduced, resulting in changes in banquet culture such as the uses and composition of wine vessel sets. From the reign of King Chungnyeol (r. 1274-1308), which was under the authority of the Yuan imperial court, royal banquets began to be co-hosted by kings and princesses, Mongolian-style banquets like boerzhayan (孛兒扎宴) were held, and attendees donned the tall headdress called gugu worn by Mongol women. During the reign of King Chungnyeol, the banquet culture changed 132 banquets were held. This implies that the court tried to strengthen its authority by royal marriage with the Yuan court, which augmented the number of banquets. At these banquets, new alcoholic drinks were introduced such as grape wine, dongnak (湩酪), and distilled liquor. New wine vessels included stem cups, pear-shaped bottles (yuhuchunping), yi (匜), and cups with a dragon head. The new celadon wine vessels were all modeled after metal wares that were used in the Yuan court or in the Khanates. The changes in the celadon wine vessels of the late Goryeo era were examined here in a more specific manner than in previous studies by expanding the samples for the study to the Eurasian khanates. With the influx of new types of wine vessels, it was natural for the sets and uses of Goryeo celadon wine vessels to change in response. The new styles of celadon wine vessels linked the Goryeo court with the distant Khanates of the Mongol Empire. This paper is the beginning of a new study that examines the uses of Goryeo celadon by illuminating the relations between royal banquets and these unique celadon wine vessels that are stylistically different from everyday vessels. It is to be hoped that more studies will be conducted from diverse perspectives exploring both the usage of Goryeo celadon vessels and their users.