著者

船越 昭生

出版者

人文地理学会

雑誌

人文地理 (ISSN:00187216)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.23, no.2, pp.115-127, 1971

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The purpose of the present paper is to investigate what influences Matteo Ricci's world maps had in the culture of Korea, which was the closest to China among the countries in the Chinese cultural sphere.In the Li-Cho period of Korea, there were some fanciful world maps in Shan-Hai-Ching style, called T'yon-Ha To or T'yon-Ha Ch'one-To. On the other hand, early in the 15th century they also had world maps, which describes the entire world already, known to the Chinese of the day with a supplement of a detailed map of Korea (They even show their in acquaintances wich Islamic geographical knowledges.).The Li-Cho dispached envoys to China every year, who imported new things from China in a comparatively short time. It is probable that Matteo Ricci's world map in Chinese translation reached Korea already in the next year of its publication. Futhermore, we have in Korea the sole existent copy of the Lian-I Hsuan-Lan Tu, which was published by Li Ying-Shih in the next year following the publication of the best edition of Ricci's Kun-Yü Wan-Kuo Chúan-Tu and has almost the same geographical content with the latter, the main difference among them being their divisions into parts. It was a group of positivistic scholars (Si-Hak P'yo) aiming even at social reformations who accepted not only Ricci's world maps but also other things introduced by Western missionaries. Although those scholars had made extensive study of their own country, Korea, their scope for the world was naturally limited.The acceptance of Richi's maps, however, made it possible for them to extend their geographical knowledge beyond the already-known world, namely, as far as Europe, Africa and the new continents. There is evidence to show that they even knew the holiocentric theory by the latter half of the 18th century. They compiled an encyclopedia and incorporated into it their positivistic scholarship, including the geographical knowledge of the world. Although the Chinese world maps, based on such European knowledge as mentioned above, gave a new impulse to the rise of the modern Korean thought, it could not attain its full development because of the immaturity of historical and social conditions. As another reason for this unsuccessful development we might take account of the limitations of the positivistic scholars who could not go beyond confucianism. Thus, the acceptance of Ricci's world maps on Korea, unlike the case with Japan, ended without their wider diffusion and the maps passed in disuse, following the same course as in China after the middle of the Ching dynasty. just like the T'yon-Ha To in the Li-Cho period, Ricci's world maps were accepted in Korea, as one of the cultural overflows from China, and so they shared the same fate as in its mother-land, China.