The Changes Of Taoism In Korea And Influences Of Taoism In Each Era

Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism are the three main streams of oriental traditional thought and culture, and they have exerted strong influences on East-Asian countries like Korea and China. After being introduced to Korea these three great religion stimulated Korean culture and thought to progress rapidly and played important role throughout Korean history.Until recently, studies and researches on Confucianism and Buddhism have already had abundant achievement in Korea, on the other hand, studies on Taoism are still have a lot to be further researched. There are lots of reasons why the studies on Taoism are not sufficient; the biggest cause of this phenomenon is that in the origin Taoism was not a just one religion at all. Taoism was rather a complicated mixture of various Chinese primitive beliefs like shamanism though it also included profound philosophical thought of Laozi and Zhuangzi, which has made present Taoism have characteristics of complex religion.It was the ancient Korean endemic (poly)theism that was similar to the Taoism which was then introduced to Korea in The Era of Three Kingdoms from China. Because there were little difference between these two kinds of thoughts-Taoism and the Korean ancient endemic theism, people couldn't regard Taoism as a new systematic thought, not to mention foreign religion. In this way Taoism naturally assimilated to Koreans.There were similarities between Taoism and Korean primitive endemic natural beliefs of (poly)theism or thought of Taoist(s), so I believe understandings about those (poly)theism or thought of Taoist(s) will help us to study and understand Taoism or Taoist. As one of three main thought systems in East-Asia, Taoism has influenced greatly on our religious beliefs, daily lives, philosophical thought, and so on, but the studies and researches are yet insufficient in Korea.Generally the development of Taoism in Korea is divided into four stages:1.Introduction of Taoism-in the Era of Three Kingdoms; 2.Rites centered Taoism-in the Era of Korea Dynasty; 3.Training centered Taoism-in the Era of Chosun Dynasty(particularly in mid and latter period of Chosun); 4.Popular religion centered Taoism-modern present times. In this thesis, the formation and development of Taoism in China will be briefly introduced first, and then introduce the development in Korea, latter part of this thesis will be devoted to find out the developments and changes of Taoism within the historical context, and finally it will be concluded with the mention of what kind of influences Taoism has ever made on Korea and Koreans of each time.The main content of this thesis consists of 4 parts. In the first part,<Daodejing>, the bible of Taoism and'Laozi', (mostly believed as) the author of<Daodejing>, the various editions of<Daodejing>, and the relation between Taoism and Taoist will be studied. In the second part, the development of Taoism in China and the influences of Taoism upon Chinese people will be studied. In the third part, the development of Taoism in Korea and the influences of Taoism upon Korean people in each era of Korean history will be studied especially with the focus of the features or unique characteristics of Taoism in each era. The fourth part will be conclusion of second and third parts and this thesis, so the development of Taoism in China and Korea, and its influences upon above two countries, particularly the different influences and distinctive features of Taoism on each era of history will be studied.