Korea Journal of Buddhist Studies 불교학연구 ISSN:1598-0642(Print)

This paper, as a way of the discussion of the influence of Buddhism on writing, examines the characteristics of Byeonche Hanmun ‘texts written in Chinese characters in epigraphs of the Silla period and their implications. Byeonche Hanmun refers to Korean style texts written in Chinese characters, which consist of word order rearrangement and the formation of Korean grammatical morphemes in Chinese characters. The weight of Buddhism related data is very great in Byeonche Hanmun in the United Silla period, which account for 22 out of a total 27 pieces of data. Byeonche Hanmun, as can be seen from Buddhist epigraphs, is written in the Korean word order and in relatively diverse notations of grammatical forms. In particular, those Byeonche Hanmun texts involving wishes show almost exact notations of the Korean language and expresses religious and individual personalities. Such characteristics, distinguished from those of previous and contemporary Byeonche Hanmun texts, have great implications or significance in that they express Silla people’ s religious and individual personalities in speech and texts. Also, the fact that the chronology of their production is more accurate than that of Hyang-ga ‘Korean song’works in Samgukyusa ‘Inherited History of the Three Nations’provides an opportunity to consider these Byeonche Hanmun texts to be the first beginning of writing in mother tongue by Silla people, and furthermore, of Korean national literature.