[KS] Samguk Yusa readership during Joseon - response

[Best, Jonathan]

Dear Andrew,

Relating to your one final, separate question: there are many problems with the Ha translation of the Yusa and I'd urge you always to check Ha's rendition against both the original and a good modern annotated Korean translation of the text. An instance where this extra bit of investigation clearly would have benefited you is your apparent assumption, in accordance with Ha's consistent implication to that effect, that where the Yusa says "the sagi states" 史記曰/云, it references the Samguk sagi. Often and again this is clearly not the case as can be demonstrated by checking what the Sagi actually says about the same thing—and at least to my historical and historiographic senses, it not infrequently is the case that what the Yusa reports is more credible than what the Sagi records. In any case, it is absolutely certain that the Yusa's "sagi"—in some instances quite possibly just "a historical record"— is not necessarily the Samguk sagi.

Jonathan
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From: koreanstudies-bounces at koreaweb.ws [koreanstudies-bounces at koreaweb.ws] on behalf of Andrew [zatouichi at gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2012 8:03 AM
To: Korean Studies Discussion List
Subject: Re: [KS] Samguk Yusa readership during Joseon - response


One final, separate question, regarding the authorship which has been touched upon.  I have in places read, and formed the impression that the Samguk-yusa was consciously written as an alternative to the Samguk-sagi which was too orthodox Confucian and generally ignored Buddhism.  But reading the English translation of the Samguk-yusa, I couldn't detect this, and the Samguk-sagi is even referenced.  The first two more historical sections, don't seem especially different to the historiography of the Samguk-sagi (just less detailed) and considering this, they likely both relied on similar earlier sources, such as the Gu-samguk-sa.  Is there evidence then, that the author(s) of the Samguk-yusa were expressly critical of Kim Bu-sik and the Samguk-sagi, or is this a later misperception?

sincerely to all,
Andrew Logie

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