A Study on the Letter Cheong-sa (靑詞) for Choi-rye (醮禮) by Comparing the Letter Styles: Jae (齋), Soh (疏) and Do-ryang-mun (道場文)

Since antiquity, humanity has responded to natural calamities and agricultural crises—events inseparable from survival—through ritual supplication directed toward both divine forces and governing authorities. Such acts of prayer for rain and blessings transcend the doctrinal divides of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, each of which developed distinctive ritual texts (Gwaui-mun, 科儀文) that embody their respective cosmologies, theological frameworks, and literary aesthetics. This study offers a comparative analysis of the Confucian Prayer Texts for Rain (Gi’u Chukmun, 祈雨祝文), the Buddhist Doryangso (道場疏), and the Daoist Cheongsa (靑詞), with the aim of elucidating the textual structures and ideological underpinnings of ritual literature within the Three Teachings (三敎) tradition in East Asia. Confucian prayer texts, rooted in classical sources such as the Liji and Lüshi Chunqiu, formulate a political theology of moral responsibility, wherein rulers assume guilt for misfortunes and seek to rectify cosmic imbalance through virtuous governance. These texts emphasize the Confucian ideal of repaying the root and returning to the origin (報本反始) and present prayer not as a personal plea but as a moral declaration of public responsibility. By contrast, the Buddhist Doryangso, informed by scriptures such as the Dayunlun Qingyu Jing, constructs a visually symbolic ritual altar (方壇) centered on Śākyamuni Buddha expounding the Tathāgata Sutra, invoking compassionate intercession (karuṇā) and salvific empowerment (adhiṣṭhāna) on behalf of suffering sentient beings. The stylistic hybridity of these texts also reveals their incorporation of Daoist terminology and form. Daoist Qingsi originated in Jiao rites at the Taiqing Palace during the Tang dynasty and evolved into a highly codified literary form composed in regulated parallel prose (四六騈文) using vermilion ink on blue-dyed paper. Their tripartite structure—invocation, confession, and petition—reflects the Daoist emphasis on ritual precision and spiritual efficacy. By the Song and Ming periods, Qingsi had expanded from a state-centered genre into one encompassing individual aspirations for prosperity and longevity, thereby acquiring a dual function as both liturgical and literary expression. Despite responding to the same existential threat of drought, the Three Teachings articulated fundamentally distinct modes of mediation between the human and the divine: through moral contrition (Confucianism), compassionate devotion (Buddhism), and esoteric ritual efficacy (Daoism). This study reveals that the prayer text was not merely a vehicle of religious sentiment but a complex cultural discourse wherein politics, religion, literature, and cosmology intersect. As an initial comparative study of Zhai, Doryangso, and Qingsi, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of East Asian ritual texts and lays a foundation for future inquiries across Chinese and Korean corpora, including comparative thematic analysis, performance contexts, and ritual literary aesthetics.