Magos, Muses, and Matrikas: the Magoist Cosmogony and Gynocentric Unity1

국학연구론총 제14집 택민국학연구원 2014. 12. 31. Magos, Muses, and Matrikas: The Magoist Cosmogony and Gynocentric ＊ Unity 1) ＊＊ Helen Hye-sook Hwang2) <목차> 1. The Magoist Cosmogony and the Mago Lineage 2. Numeric Resemblances in World’s Goddess Traditions 3. Parallels between Magos and Matrikas <국문초록> 이 논문은 마고문화의 창조론에 나타난 여성중심적 원리에 관하여 토론하고 그것을 고대 그리스-로마 문화에 나타난 뮤즈 여신들과 힌 두 문화의 마트리카 여신 전통과 비교한다. 방법론적으로, 이 유형의 ＊ This paper is a spin-off of an earlier paper, "An Investigation of Gynocentric Unity in Mago, the Great Goddess, and Elsewhere," presented in the Conference of Pacific and Southwest Women’s Studies on April 17, 2004, in Scripps College, Claremont California. It is also slightly revised from the version that I presented at Mago International Conference, October 18, 2014, Mago Stronghold, Jiri Mountains, South Korea. I dedicate this paper to late Dr. Yenkyu Chung whose scholarship on Magoism has opened a venue for future research and discussion among scholars and the public. ＊＊ Adjunct Faculty of Central Missouri Univsity, U.S.A. 2 국학연구론총 제14집 첫 번째 연구인 본인의 마고문화학은 한국, 중국, 일본에서 나오는 원 천자료들이 인도하는 방법론을 따른다. 그 결과 기록된 문서, 설화, 예술, 문학, 지명을 포함하는 문헌들(다른 곳에서는 상관이 없거나 고 립된 자료들로 남게 되는)을 들추어서 재발견하는 여성주의적, 횡민 족주의적, 다학제간, 비교 연구 방법이 사용되었다. 궁극적 창조성인 우주음악과 구랑(마고와 두 딸, 즉 삼신과 여덟 손녀딸)으로도 알려 진 마고 계보의 첫 3대로 특징지어지는 마고문화의 창조론은 뮤즈와 마트리카 여신들과 매우 강하게 공명한다. 후자의 두 전통에서, 언어 적, 숫자적 증거뿐 아니라 동정출산, 모계적 계보, 문화적 양상들로 나타나는 여성중심적 일치성은 마고문화의 창조론과 밀접하게 연관 된 것으로 보인다. 마고문화의 관점에서는 그러한 다양한 면모의 일 치가 놀랍지 않다. 정확하게도, 전통적인 마고문화인들은 자신들이 태 고 어머니의 첫 번째 이야기를 전수하는 기억 전달자로 규명하고 있다. <핵심어> 마고, 마고성, 부도지, 동정출산, 뮤즈, 마트리카, 여신, 율려, 팔려, 우 주의 음악, 구랑, 삼신, 모계, 한국여신, 마고계보, 그리스 여신, 인도 여신, 힌두교 That Mago (麻姑)1) is the Great Goddess of East Asia is still new to the world. The topic of Mago remains largely unexplored in its own right in the West. If known at all, Her identity remains slippery at best. Even among Koreanists, a full-fledged study is yet to be made due largely to the peculiarities of Korean primary sources. Korean primary sources 1) Read Ma as in Mama. Magos, Muses, and Matrikas: The Magoist Cosmogony and Gynocentric Unity 1)ㆍHelen Hye-sook Hwang 3 are marked by the following three traits. First, primary sources embody the gynocentric (read female-centered) principle. Secondly, they attest to an alternative view of pre-Chinese Korean history2). Lastly, a pan-East Asian manifestation of Mago makes the topic touchy. Ironically, for the three aforementioned reasons, I became interested in pursuing the topic. Prompted by the sporadic reemergence of the "forgotten" literature of Mago in Korea, China, and Japan, I sought, in a spirit marked by continuous surprises and exhilarations, the one unbroken rubric of transnational context concerning Mago and named it Magoism. Magoism refers to the archaically-originated gynocentric cultural matrix in which Mago is venerated as cosmogonist, progenitor, and ultimate sovereign. I maintain that Magoism not only underlies the edifice of East Asian civilizations but also has directly and indirectly influenced the formation of the latter. Methodologically, this study did NOT begin with a ready-made theory to prove or counter-prove a topic that is in debate among scholars. That was likely so. I had been seeking a gynocentric perspective of East Asia/Korea in Western academia, which was not available. Consequently, this study has chosen to follow a new path unfolded by the documentation and interpretation of pan-East Asian primary materials. In other words, method is guided by the primary sources not the other way around. Rarity of the topic has hurled this study to the unchartedterritory, so to speak. My research is destined to carve out its own methodology to serve 2) I have discussed the issues of primary sources in ""Issues in Studying Mago, the Great Goddess of East Asia: Primary Sources, Gynocentric History, and Nationalism," in The Constant and Changing Faces of the Goddess: Goddess Traditions of Asia, eds. DeepakShimkhada and Phyllis Herman. Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008, 10-33. 4 국학연구론총 제14집 the particularities (feminist, translational/cross-cultural, and multi-disciplinary) of what the primary sources implicate. Plainly, a mono-disciplinary approach is inadequate in treating the various and sundry data including written texts, folklore, place-names, literature, and art from Korea, China, and Japan. Naturally and consequently, a feminist, trans-disciplinary, and comparative method was taken to uncover, decipher, and connect what is intimated in the primary materials. Mythology, history, thealogy, and cultural manifestations within and outside East Asian/Korean Studies are chosen as major disciplines and fields for this study to interact with. Also, writing in the English language with the aim of bringing out East Asian/Korean Studies to Western audience sets this study to take a cross-cultural comparative approach, juxtaposing it with the counterpart of Euro-American perspectives. The task of reconstructing Magoism is daunting. The areas and data it needs to cover are immense. However, that is not unexpected. Any effort to revive an old gynocentric tradition of the Great Goddess that has been made invisible in the course of history is nothing less than daring and subversive. Doubtless that, if this research holds truth, the impact would be far-reaching. As is with other studies, there is a personal aspect involved in the making of Magoist Studies. By doing it, I have dis-covered my own historical and cultural identity as a Magoist Korean woman. In short, this research is motivated by the enquiry of what has gone wrong and what has been replaced under the patriarchal (read Sinocentric) representation of ancient East Asiawith regards to the female principle. Old MagoismThis paper delineates the crux of the Magoist cosmogony that depicts Cosmic Music as ultimate creativity, and compares it with the traditions of Muses in the Magos, Muses, and Matrikas: The Magoist Cosmogony and Gynocentric Unity 1)ㆍHelen Hye-sook Hwang 5 Greco-Roman culture and Matrikas in Hindu tradition. It shows how both Muses and Matrikas bear a close resemblance to Magos (Mago, Her two daughters, and eight granddaughters), the first three generations of Mago’s linage. From the perspective of Magoism, I propose that parallels among these Goddess traditions are not accidental. The Magoist cosmogony is meant to offer an etiological framework to Muses and Matrikas. The mytho-history of Magoism has an innate purpose to tell how ancient Magoists took the self-identified mission of maintaining and spreading the Magoist cosmogony among peoples of the world. Speaking from the perspective of the Budoji, principal text of Magoism that gives a systematic and account of the Magoist cosmogony, it is a corollary that world’s Goddess traditions are similar to one another, ultimately witnessing to the common origin from the Great Goddess. The Budoji, unapologetically yet nostalgically, pronounces (1) that Mago (the Great Goddess) is the progenitor of all peoples, (2) that ancient Korean Magoists were the primary bear of the gynocentric beginning myth that involved the Great Goddess, and (3) that they were able to maintain gynocentric unity across cultures and lands in pre- and proto-patriarchal times. Because the Magoist cosmogony is heavily drawn from the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City)3), delineating some pivotal background of the Budoji at the outset would help readers. Among the primary sources that I have collected and documented, the Budoji, 3) See Bak, Geum, The Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City),Eun-Su Kim, translated and annotated (Seoul: Hanmunhwa, 2002), 1986c.refer to Thomas Yoon’s English translation and commentary on the Budoji.Thomas Yoon, The BuDoZhi: The Genesis of MaGo (Mother Earth) and The History of the City of Heavenly Ordinance (Notre Dame, IN: Cross Cultural Publications, 2003). 6 국학연구론총 제14집 reemerged in the mid-1980s in Korea, weighs a primal importance for its exclusive treatise of Old Magoism4). The Budoji, allegedly written around the early fifth century, records a consistent and sophisticated account of ancient mytho-history of Magoist Korea from the perspective of Early Silla (57BCE-935 CE). Its cosmogonic chapters, out of thirty-three chaptersin all, are rife with gynocentric notions and terms such as Cosmic Music, parthenogenesis, Mago Stronghold (world center and the primordial home of humans), and Mago lineage. It pronounces that everything owes to Mago for its existence and prosperity. In around the late fourth century, Sillan ruling elites faced the military and ethnocentric expansion of the Han Chinese rule. The dilemma concerned whether Silla should adopt the Chinese model (monarchical rule) or maintain the traditional model of theacratic confederacy. With Magoist confederacy of Joseon (2333BCE-232 BCE) long declined, the Budoji was written to advocate Old Magoism to be revived as state policyfor Silla. The Magoist Cosmogony and the Mago Lineage According to the Budoji, ultimate creativity is attributed to Cosmic Music (read sonic movement or frequency), Pal-ryeo (八呂, Eight Pitches) or Yul-ryeo (律呂, Rhythm and Pitch)5). Primordial matter 4) Old or Early Magoism is characterized as its theacracy by Magoist shaman rulers, which I call magocracy. Old Magoism prevailed in pre- and proto-Chinese times. New or Late Magoism, characterized by the loss of political hegemony, begins after the decline of Joseon (2333 BCE-232 BCE), the confederacy of three states. 5) Whether Pal-ryeo and Yul-ryeo refers to the same entity or not remains a debate. It is possible to denote that Yul-ryeo is a more general term for Cosmic Music, whereas Pal-ryeo is a specific term that indicates the Magos, Muses, and Matrikas: The Magoist Cosmogony and Gynocentric Unity 1)ㆍHelen Hye-sook Hwang 7 came to existence through the self-equilibrating movement of Cosmic Music.

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