Intangible Culture ISSN:2799-3868(Print) 무형문화연구

This article introduces the discourse of the Buddhist ritual studies in the west to contribute to the establishment of Buddhist ritual studies in Korea. Buddhist ritual studies are closely connected to the development of ritual studies in the west, so this article begins with the theories of ritual studies. The direction of the ritual studies changes from digging into the unrevealed meaning of the ritual to study ritual itself as a kind of performance. As Robert Sharf indicated, scholars now first ask what & how people do in ritual rather than its meaning. In addition, the scholars focus more on studying individual rituals than finding common characteristics of all rituals. In this context, Buddhist ritual studies also focus more on ritual action, then spontaneously it flows to look for the ritual elements in Zen Buddhism. Ronald Grimes uses his six modes – Ritualization, Decorum, Ceremony, Magic, Liturgy, Celebration- to analyze Zen practice actions such as breathing, bowing, hitting, clinging, sitting, enlightenment. Robert Sharf defines ritual in a broad way to embrace the Zen practice action into the ritual. With those efforts, Buddhist ritual studies in the west can study more subjects in ritual studies.