A History of Korea by Professor Kyung Moon Hwang Page B

the rain gage, water clock, and sun dial. He is seen, in short, as having come closest to the ideal of the sagacious monarch who promoted the welfare of the common people above all. But one can also summarize his accomplishments and historical significance with the claim that, more than anything else, King Sejong the Great completed the foundation of the Chosn state’s great task of Confucianizing Korea.
    Even the development of the Korean alphabet itself was part of Sejong’s wide-ranging efforts to enhance the state’s dissemination of Confucian teachings. Overlooked in the ceaseless and ubiquitous mythologizing of this great feat (there is even a national holiday honoring the alphabet) is the fact that Sejong, in addition to standardizing the Korean—that is, “correct”—pronunciation of Chinese characters, found the alphabet a potentially breakthrough instrument for public education. In his famous preamble to the “Proper Sounds to Educate the People” (
Hunmin chngm
), the document introducing the new alphabet, Sejong stated not only that the Korean language is different from Chinese, but also that the common (“ignorant”) people needed a simplified system of written communication. The Chosn government in fact soon began to publish numerous didactic works featuring glosses with the new alphabet, all preaching the core values of Neo-Confucianism. And indeed, Neo-Confucian scholarship and education was the basic charge of the Hall of Worthies, a state research institute that Sejong established soon after ascending to the throne. Today there remain questions about the precise balance of contributions from the Hall of Worthies and King Sejong the Great to the alphabet project, but in accordance with the Confucian values that Sejong so eagerly sought to instill, there was no difference: he gets the credit.
    As noted above, the Confucian transformation of Korea by the Chosn dynasty took a very long time to accomplish, but T’aejong’s actions helped to set the parameters of Confucianization, characterized by a comprehensiveness of ambition and scope, especially under the direction of the state. The institution of the tributary relationship with China as a means of integrating Korea into the universal civilizational (i.e., Confucian) order represented one of the key steps in this direction that T’aejong, even before he became king, directly ensured. Some modern historians have criticized this and other steps taken by the Chosn founding fathers like T’aejong and Chng Tojn as having led the Koreans to subsume their native ways, indeed their cultural autonomy, to the foreign ideology of Neo-Confucianism. The early Chosn’s explicit reference to the Confucian canon as the basis for comprehensive changes appears indeed to have set the stage for an obsessive and at times stultifying preoccupation with asserting the country’sConfucian credentials. But Confucianism, like Buddhism, also contained the potential to highlight and heighten native customs and identity. T’aejong’s son and successor, King Sejong the Great, considered the greatest of all Korean monarchs, served as convincing testimony to this potential.

8
    .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
    Confucianism and the Family in the Early Chosn Dynasty
    CHRONOLOGY
1469
Promulgation of
Kyngguk taejn
, the Chosn dynastic code
1480
Birth of Lady Yi of Kangnng
1501
Birth of philosopher Yi Hwang (T’oegye)
1504
Birth of Sin Saimdang, daughter of Lady Yi
1536
Birth of Yi I (Yulgok), son of Sin Saimdang
1541
Drafting of the Yi family inheritance testament
1551
Death of Sin Saimdang
1569
Death of Lady Yi
    THE DRAFTING OF THE YI FAMILY INHERITANCE TESTAMENT, 1541
    In 1541, a family inheritance document was drawn up to designate the division of an aristocratic female’s possessions, mostly in the form of slaves. Though normally an unremarkable event, this particular occurrence was notable because some of the recipients of this estate, along with its attendant