Influence Of Buddhist Stories To Ancient Korean Narrative Literature

Literature and religion are two essential components of cultures in the world. Any valuable literature of a nation is both deeply rooted in its own cultures and, at the same time, has absorbed the essence of foreign cultures. Buddhism has exerted profound influence to the oriental cultures, and Korean literature, keeping longstanding exchanges with Chinese literature and Indian literature, is no exception to the rule. In its process of development, Korean literature has absorbed abundant nutrition from the excellent cultures of many countries including China and India. As is known to all that "Greek mythology is not only one of the presentations of Greek art, it is also the land to nurture it", Indian Buddhist scriptures are the treasure land of oriental cultures, and the inexhaustible sources of Chinese and Korean literatures.Buddhism is distributed through Buddhist scriptures, and Koryo Buddhist Canon is one of the most ancient and comprehensive Buddhist canons of Chinese version preserved in the present world. It is the most important master copy of Japanese Buddhist Canon (Taisho Shinshu Daizokyo) and Chinese Buddhist Canon. It has great academic value in the studies of ancient oriental traditional cultures.The current paper adopts the approaches of comparative literature, such as cross-discipline research, influence study as well as positivism, and a systematic and profound study is conducted about the influence of Buddhist stories to ancient Korean narrative literature. Focusing especially on Koryo Buddhist Canon, it discusses the Buddhist origins of Korean folk stories and novels, which conclusively proves the influence of Buddhist stories to ancient Korean narrative literature. It is an innovation in terms of research methodology and a great contribution to the researches in this field.Buddhism, one of the major religions in the world, has experienced its ups and downs in its long history of over 2000 years. However, its influence to the human society is universally recognized and even in the present century, it has great enlightenment to the advance of human beings. The oriental thoughts, such as Chinese theory of "man is an integral part of nature" and Indian idea of "the oneness of Buddha and me", readjust the relationships between human society and nature and are of important realistic significance. This project studies the ancient Korean narrative literature on the basis of Buddhist stories, and it further clarifies internal relationships between the thoughts of oriental cultures and East Asian and oriental cultures. It has made its contribution to the studies of East Asian culture, world literature, as well as the comparative studies of cultures.