The representation of the Korean Buddhist ritual in this book is given in the form of an ethnographic-philosophical ekphrasis based on several years of field research conducted in various Korean temples, but mainly at Bongwonsa in Seoul.

Yŏngsan-jae is a ritual performed to assist the souls (yeonghon) of ancestors to enter heaven (cheondo). The ritual performance consists of offering various gifts (kongyang) to buddhas, bodhisattvas, ancestors and hungry spirits with the aim of reaching participation in Buddha’s virtue (gongdeok). My reflections follow a complex structure of multifaceted relationship between text, performance and ritual which can be summarized as follows:

1. 1.Yŏngsan-jae is a ritual whose performative genres, i.e. drama, dance and music, I observe as a ritualization (mise en scène) of the Lotus-sūtra.

2. 2.Lotus-sūtra is a textualization of the event on the Vulture Peak (Gṛdhrakūṭa) in India as narrated by Ānanda due to his ability of remembering all events he experienced with Śākyamuni. On that occasion, Buddha preached the oneness (ekayāna) of his teaching in spite of previously teaching about its three forms (triyāna).

3. 3.The ritual performance enables the above-mentioned event to be re-actualised, and the intention of it is to fill all the participants with joyful (hwanhoe) and sublime (beopyeol) emotions once they have heard the exposition of dharma (beop).

The ekphrasis based on my field research and continuous reference to the Lotus-sūtra, daenghwa and collected emic explanations is the textualization of ritual, but beyond this, it is also a reflection on the process of my own writing.