1. Introduction

When discussing the traditional culture of a country or people, we usually first pay attention to the religions or ideologies. We do so because they are the essence of traditional culture as well as influential factors in a culture's development. In this context, it seems natural that Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism are treated as frequent topics in the occasion where the traditional culture of the three East-Asian countries (Korea, China, and Japan) is discussed. Few people would contest the view that the ideological ground for the culture of the three countries consists of Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism, though I think otherwise. It is not easy for me to agree with the idea that Chinese ideologies have exerted a one-way influence on Asian traditional culture.
From the perspective of China, Confucianism and Daoism are their own ideologies, but from the perspective of Korea and Japan, they are as foreign as Buddhism. Does this mean that Korean and Japan did not have their own religions? They certainly did: a more original than these aforementioned religions, there was a "primitive religion" or "primitive ideology", representative example of which is shamanism.
Up until the Chosun Dinasty pronounced neo-confucianism as its political ideology, shamanism had been the central religion and ideology. However, even during the Chosun Dinasty, though they officially denied shamanism, appointed national shamans and worshiped this traditional religion. On the other hand, Choi Chi Won(崔致遠: 857 - ?) considered that “poong-ryu(風流)”, a unique korean occultic ideology, embraces the three religions and that "poong-ryu" is the very fruits of Shamanism.
In Japan, primitive shamanism, on the one hand, developed into Japanese Shinto and, in one respect, diverged into public faith - along with taboo, fortune-telling, predication, magic, animism - satisfying the public's religious and spiritual desire. This means that Shinto (a unique religion of Japan) is also shamanism in essence. Both in Korea and Japan, shamanism preceded the three religions, becoming the very agent that accepted them.
In the today's academic world of China, the theory that the origin of shamanism in China goes all the way back to the Neolithic era and that the executor of shamanism, the shaman, was the archetypal intellectual in various fields afterward is generally accepted. Then, the emergence of Confucianism and Daoism cannot be irrelevant to Shamanism. From the perspective of graphonomy, 儒(ru: Confucian) was originally inscribed as “需(xu)” on bones and tortoise carapaces, and it mimicked 'a person pouring water on herself' to represent the shaman performing ablution before executing rites in primitive religions, and the character “人” added afterward. It strongly suggests that 儒 emerged from primitive religion (shamanism). On the other hand, according to "Treaties on Literature" of the Book of Han(漢書․藝文志), "Daoism emerged from the historiographer(史官)", but even the historiographer, parallel to the shaman historian(巫史), is among the shaman(巫) circles, allowing one to conclude that shamanism is the root of Daoism. From these, we may assume that shamanism played a role when Buddhism, a foreign religion, was settling, further fusing and harmonizing the co-existence of the three religions were.
We often categorize the three East-Asian countries into a cultural band of chinese characters(hanzi) or Confucianism, but to do so is too superficial and naive. Even if we were to further expand the culture into three religions, it still does not fully explicate the traditional cultures of three countries. Starting from this recognition, this article attempts to find an answer in Shamanism. Such a viewpoint may be questionable to some: first, provided that the universal primitive religion, which all human race share in its youth, is shamanism, and that it is obvious that it is the origin of traditional cultures, is it necessary to argue this again? Secondly, considering that shamanism collapsed into folk religion and did not have much influence on high culture, is it possible to argue for homogeneity in traditonal cultures in the three countries?
However, I don't think of shamanism as a relic of ancient times or a folk culture. That is, I think that shamanism took a pivotal role in the entire process, from formation to development, of the traditional culture in the three countries. As a part of the argument, I will first pay attention to the sage(聖人 sheng ren) and shamans, for the sage was the common ideal of the traditional society in the three countries. In addition, I will explain the theory of literature concerned with the sage as an example revealing the in-depth influence of shamanism.

2. Shaman and Wu(巫)

According to Feng Yu-lan(馮友蘭), all philosophy in China pursues the ideal, "sageliness within kingliness without(內聖外王)". Only differing in their actual methods of responding to reality, Confucius in Confucianism and Lao Tzu in Daoism commonly suggested the sage as the ultimate ideal, as if they had agreed to do so. The situation is similar in Korea and Japan; what is surprising is the fact that the description of the sage is too similar. Shaman itself is wu(巫).
Shamanism is the universal religion or religious phenomenon on which human race have relied since its youth. Nevertheless, the number its definition is as many as the number of related scholars. It means that although shamanism (a form of magical religion) and the shaman (a pivotal figure in shamanism) are fundamentally identical anywhere, they also have many differences depending on the region or people. It is not the purpose of this article to examine the differences and varying definitions. A Japanese scholar provides an inclusive definition on shamanism as follows.
Shamanism is a form of magic-religion in which the shaman, who directly contacts and communicates with supernatural beings (God, spirits, ghost) in an abnormal psychological state, or in a trance, takes a pivotal role in prediction, oracle, fortune-telling, cure etc.
Here, trance (a passage of soul) indicates "a declined state of usual consciousness", a concept including ecstasy and possession. That is, when the usual consciousness of the shaman becomes dull and weakened (trance), her soul leaves where it used to be (ecstasy) or lets the god or spirits control her body (possession). The ultimate purpose of this act, of course, is to mediate between supernatural beings and human beings.
I mentioned that shamanism is a universal phenomenon, but the current academic society of China shows a strong tendency to confine it to the minorities in northern China. That is, they see it as an independent religious phenomenon confined to the outskirts that do not belong to the Zhongyuan (central plain of China) culture. However, ancient Chinese literature shows that the shaman is basically identical with the wu(巫) of China and that shamanism overlaps with a series of phenomena centered around wu(巫).
巫 is 祝(zhu) (annotation of Duan Yucai(段玉裁): 祝 is a erratum of 覡(xi)). It means a woman who worships the immaterial (無形(wu xing)) and lets the god descend while dancing. This character mimicked the appearance of a dancing woman who flaps her sleeves... 覡 is a person who is of integrity and solemnity and can worship deity(神明(shen ming)). When it is a male, we call him 覡, and when a female, we call her 巫. (Shuowen Jiezizhu)
It is a person who has an inseparable soul and spirit as well as integrity, solemnity and sincerity; his/her wisdom can discern the justice of the higher and the lower, his/her virtue enlighten people far and wide, he/she can see and hear everything. If these conditions are satisfied, then a deity(神明) descends on him/her. In case of a man, we call him male shaman (覡), a woman, female shaman (巫). (Guoyu․Discourse of Chu)
Here, the immaterial (無形), god (神), and deity (神明) are all supernatural beings. The preconditions that enable the shaman to contact and communicate with the supernatural are integrity and solemnity, which are not unlike the state separated from secularity, or declined state of usual consciousness.
That she has abilities to hear and see everything means that her soul freely travels to the supernatural world, transcending the constraints of reality (ecstasy); that god descending means that the supernatural being governs her(possession). In a nutshell, she is a medium between the supernatural being and humans. On the other hand, a scholar interprets the character “巫” as imitating the scene in which two persons are dancing on both sides of a pillar, connecting sky and earth; this is also interpreted as sacred tree (神木) or Cosmic tree (宇宙木), once mentioned by Eliade. In any case, 巫 as explained in Chinese literature is basically consistent with the general definition of the shaman, that it is a person who directly contacts and communicates with supernatural beings (god, spirit, ghost) in an abnormal psychological state, or trance.
These data show us that wu(巫) of ancient China is a kind of shaman. By this we can conclude that a series of phenomenon centered around 巫 is of shamanism. However, some leading experts on shamanism, including Qiu Pu(秋浦), argue that shamanism as a primitive religion has existed from the early history of the Han race (漢族): it gripped political and religious power in the Shang Dynasty(商代), but its power began to decrease in the Zhou Dynasty(周代), and finally, after the Han Dynasty(漢代), it was expelled from the power structures, being replaced by Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. And from then on, he argues, shamanism maintained its slender existence as a folk religion.
One questions whether the argument is convincing. It is necessary to discuss this issue in-depth, but first, even with a simple fact, the argument is substantially undermined: coming after the Period of North and South Dynasties, the five dynasties - Northern Wei(北魏), Liao(遼), Jin(金), Yuan(元), Qing(淸) - which governed the central plain of China, were founded by the people of the northern area where they worshiped shamanism. In any case, it is certain that shamanism did not disappear from the history of China at all. Even if the argument were partially accepted, I think that, at least, the principle of shamanism has persistently and strongly influenced the way of thinking of the Chinese, as well as that of East-Asians. One of its prime examples is the Sage(聖人).

3. Confucius's concept of the Sage

Confucius, the founder of Confucianism, categorized human into five levels according to their deportment. They were the common man (庸人(yong ren)), the scholar-knight (士人(shi ren)), the gentleman (君子(jun zi)), the worthy (賢人(xian ren)), and the Sage (聖人(sheng ren)), ranked as top. He defines the sage as follows.
Confucius said that in general, the Sage is the most virtuous, extremely flexible, knows everything in the world from beginning to end, follows the natural way of everything, distributes great morality and achieves humanity and character. He is as bright as the sun and the moon, as virtuous as god, thus the lower-class don't understand his virtue, and even the people who can see it, cannot see the boundary of it. We call these people the Sage. ≪Kongzi jiayu(Family Talks of Master Kong)․Wu yi(Five Deportment)≫
The Sage have limitless abilities which the lower-class cannot even sense. But where does this ability come from? Confucius explicitly mentions it in Liji (禮記).
“The Sage participate in the harmony of universe, and govern the country together with ghosts.” <Liji․Li-yun>
The phrase means that the Sage gets limitless power by associating with the universe and ghosts. It naturally reminds us of the image of the shaman, and the following document gives a clearer image.
According to Confucianists, the Sage knows what will happen for thousand years in the future, and what happened in the past ten thousand generations, have abilities to see and hear what nobody but he can and know the name of a thing as soon as it appears, knows everything without learning, and understands without asking. Therefore the Sage is considered as wondrous. It is like regarding milfoil and tortoise as wondrous and magical because the stick of milfoil and burning tortoise shells lets us divine the future. ≪Lun-heng․Shi zhi≫
Even though this passage is followed by Wang Ch'ung(王充: 27 - ca. 97)'s poignant criticism on the attitude of Confucianism in which the Sage is considered a deity, we can confirm in this passage, which reveals the general understanding in those days, that the idolized Sage is quite similar to shamans. The Sage, like the divining stick of milfoil and divination by burning tortoise shells, see through fortune with his special abilities, but this is not the result of secular learning. People at that time thought that "The sages came down from Heaven; that they are divine creatures who know everything and can do anything,(bao pu zi․bian wen)" just as the shaman did in ancient times.

4. Lao Tzu's concept of the Sages

In all eighty-one chapters of the Lao Tzu, the word "the sages" appears as many as thirty three times. Like Confucius, Lao Tzu regards the sage as the ultimate ideal, and his concept of the sage is also strongly tinted with the image of the shaman.
Without going out the door, you can know the world.
Without looking out the window, you can see heaven.
The farther you travel, the less you know.
Thus the wise person knows without traveling, understands without seeing, accomplishes without acting. ≪Lao Tzu, ch. 47≫
The Sage is a person who knows the world and the heavens, without going out and searching. He simply follows the principles of the heavens, and makes endless contributions without deliberately trying to do so. The fact that all of these things are achieved by spiritual communication - like the shamans - is proved by the following record in the Daoist book, Huai Nan Zi(淮南子).
The sage lets the god stay in the house of the soul and thereby goes back to the beginning of everything. He can see in the dark and hear in the silence. Thus, in the dark, he alone can see brightness and in silence, he alone can shine. ≪Huai Nan Zi․ Chu zhen xun≫
The house of the soul is a supernatural place where spirits and ghosts in the universe gather. Because the sage is able to travel to this place, he can meet with the supernatural beings in the dark and silence, where ordinary people cannot perceive anything.
Let us go back to analyzing characters. The character 聖(sheng) is closely related to the shaman. In Shuowen Jiezi(說文解字), 聖 is analyzed as a phono-semantic compound (形聲 xingsheng) character, which takes its meaning from 耳(er: its meaning is ear) and its sound from 呈(cheng), but such analysis is criticized for the reason that Xu shen (許愼: 30 - 124) made a mistake, for at that time he did not catch the inscriptions on bones and tortoise carapaces. In the inscription on bones and tortoise carapaces, 聖 is a ideogrammic compound(會意 huiyi) character, which joins the meaning, "a person or a head with big ears" and "mouth", combinedly meaning a person who has excellent abilities not only to hear but also to convey. Or it refers to people who can hear what ordinary people cannot perceive and can convey it to them; what further supports this interpretation is a finding in a version of Lao Tzu, excavated from ancient tomb Mawangdui(馬王堆) in Western Han(西漢), where this concept is expressed only with 耳 and 口(kou: its meaning is mouth). It is the world of the gods that ordinary people cannot perceive, so the Sage consulted an oracle and conveyed it to the people - a role much in common with the shaman's. The sage, whether that in Confucianism or in Daoism, is fundamentally connected to the shaman.

5. The Sage and the Shaman

Then, how is that the Sage is similar to the shaman? It is not possible to identify the Sage with the shaman or to insist that the shaman is the direct model for the Sage; Confucius himself said, “When you are not even able to serve man, how can you serve the spirits?" (Analects, Xian Jin) and Lao Tzu is known as a person who transcended the world of ghosts with the philosophical concept of 道(dao: its meaning is method). Therefore it is not plausible to argue that they regarded the shaman as an idol. Their idols, or the model of the sage, are the 'ancient people' in history or mythology. They are generally the Three Sovereigns(三皇), Five Emperors(五帝), Three Kings(三王) and famous wise subjects(賢臣), and it is interesting to note that they were governors and concurrently holding roles as shamans or governors who at least had strong hues of a shaman. It is also important to notice that the tendency to make "ancient people" or "ancient tradition" as an exemplar has connections to the strong conservatism of shamanism.