예수회 선교사 안드라데(António de Andrade)의 선교활동과 티베트 인식

초록

The reason why Father António de Andrade was able to engage in missionary activities with the full support of the king of Guge in western Tibet where Tibetan Buddhism was dominant was because of the political and religious background in which there was a sharp confrontation between the Guge throne and Gelugpa Temple forces. But Andrade’s missionary activities ultimately failed in Ngari, Tibet. The first reason behind the failed missionary activities of Andrade in Tibet is likely because of the religious, political and natural circumstances of the Ngari region of Tibet. Ngari is the birthplace of the primitive religion of Tibet and the place where the later revival of Tibetan Buddhism began. Due to the traditional thoughts and Buddhist cultures, it was difficult for missionaries to spread the Christian gospel in a short period of time. Furthermore, preaching Christianity made conflicts with the existing secular forces and religious forces even fiercer, thus ending up in the failure of missionary activities. Moreover, it was difficult for missionaries to adapt to the climate of Tibet, making evangelism even harder. The second reason why missionary activities in Tibet failed was because of the situation of missionary activities and the method of its evangelism. Andrade worked hard alone at Tsaparang for a long period of time, but he later returned to Goa, India and took on the position of chair of the Society of Jesus in Goa, and was thus unable to focus solely on the Tsaparang mission. Furthermore, the missionary method focusing on the royal family was another cause for accelerating failure of their missionary activities. Furthermore, missionaries criticized Tibetan Buddhism and its priests based on bias and distortion about Buddhism, and it believed that Christianity could replace ‘wrong’ Buddhism in Tibet with the support of the king of Guge. Anyways, Andrade created the cornerstone for the Society of Jesus missions to Tibet based in terms of cultural history for East-West exchange. Furthermore, he was the first European to visit the unknown Tibetan world and make it known to Europe, and he can be called the progenitor of western studies on Tibet. Andrade’s missionary activities in Tibet became the platform for missions to the Ü-Tsang region, and it became the basis for Jesuits Estêvão Cacella and Juan Cabral to go on missions to the Shigatse region not long later. In the early 18th century, Jesuit Ippolito Desideri left many records while serving as missionaries to Lhasa, Tibet. The records he left behind on Tibet was much more objective and factual than Andrade’s records, thus being important data for understanding the situation of the times. Such missionary activities of Desideri followed Andrade, who pioneered the first mission to Tibet, and was because of the background in which the Society of Jesus tried to revive missions to Tibet.

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