ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

This study attempts a melodic reconstruction of the Hwaeom Wonyungchan (Beopseonggye) score, a 13th–14th century musical manuscript currently held at Shōmyōji Temple in Japan. The score sets to music the Beopseonggye, a seven-character, 30-verse, 210-syllable Buddhist hymn authored by the Silla monk Uisang. Each syllable is marked with a musical notation known as hakase, totaling 210 symbols in the manuscript. These hakase are classified by the number of notes they represent, ranging from single-tone to four-tone forms. Among these, single-tone hakase are the most prevalent, and together with two-tone hakase, they account for approximately 76% of the total. In contrast, four-tone hakase appear in fewer than 5% of cases. The metric structure is organized into eight measures per verse (seven syllables each), rendering the full 30 verses as a 240-measure musical composition. The melodic scale is pentatonic, consisting of the pitches e, g, a, b, and d, with e functioning as the final (tonic). The primary skeletal tones are e, g, b, and d, with e and b playing particularly central roles. A notable feature of the melodic design is the repeated use of the melody from the first six verses, which is reused five times throughout the piece. Additionally, the relatively simple and repetitive nature of the melody suggests that it was designed to be easily sung even by laypeople rather than trained Buddhist chanters. Although the Beopseonggye is no longer chanted in Japan today, the musical setting reconstructed in this study suggests that Uisang’s hymn may have been actively performed in this form at least during the early medieval period. The significance of this study lies in its identification of how a Silla-era Hwaeom Buddhist text was musically realized and transmitted in Japan—offering the first clear evidence of its melodic form.

키워드