From Hwan’in to Yŏngdŭng through Chesŏk: a case study

Dishitian, Korean Chesŏkch’ŏn, 帝釋天 translates Śakra devānāṃ Indra “The most powerful among the gods, Indra.” Originally, he was the Vedic king of the devas, the destroyer of the cosmic snake Vṛtra, the owner of the vajra, the magic thunder-maul, the enemy of the asuras and lover of the soma, the magic, intoxicating juice. Then, Indra was soon adopted among early Buddhists as protector of the Law (Dharma), and its cult spread outside India. In China and then in Three Kingdom Korea, it was assimilated with the Jade Emperor (Yuhuang Shangdi 玉皇上帝), head of the “Celestial Bureaucracy”, a sage king. However, in Korea, there is another Chesŏk 帝釋: a shamanic, production and Destiny god, myth of which is a story about a strange monk, an unfortunate mother, three brothers and their apotheosis as childbirth gods. How did a Buddhist kingly deity transform in such way? Previous studies, namely the works of Sŏ Taesŏk and Hong Taehan, focused on the evolution of this myth from its most distant predecessors: the myth of Tan’gun and the myth of Chumong. The current study takes a different approach: It retraces the myth of Chesŏk (also knowns as myth of Tanggŭm’aegi) including its re-elaboration during the Koryŏ period 高麗 (918-1392), when both the stories and rituals took shape; it also approaches the myth and the rites synchronically, in relationship with other deities and practices, following the comparative structuralist methodology of Marcel Detienne (1935-2019): myths exist in a web of symbols and practices, and since there are no fixed boundaries between related deities, every interaction is object of analysis. In fact, the aim of this study is to highlight the web of connection within and outside the Chesŏk narratives. The analysis methods will be recalibrated to the Korean cultural landscape, very distant from the Ancient Greek one object of Detienne studies. Two limit cases will be also included to test the boundaries of this methodology: the Korean god of Death, Hallakkung’i, and the Mongol-Buryat Sky Father Khormusta: the first for the specular, opposite patronages; the second for his cultural distance yet identical origins. Summarizing, this study tries to answer three questions: the transformation of Buddhist Indra into Chesŏk; the relationship between the modern and the ancient Chesŏk; the position of Chesŏk within Korean pantheon. At the end of this work, we will see how Chesŏk is a paradigmatic case of Korean Shamanism’s multiplicity, functional plasticity and adaptability.