help overcome the emotional pain of death. Theories and interpretations Relationship to Buddhism The Song of Dorang-seonbi and Cheongjeong-gaksi has received scholarly attention for its vividly gory descriptions, which are unusual in Korean shamanic narratives. It is generally accepted that Cheongjeong-gaksi's ordeals reflect Buddhist influence. The Samguk yusa, a thirteenth-century compilation of Korean legends by the Buddhist priest Iryeon, includes two apparently related stories. In one of the legends, a man threads a rope into holes that he has bored into his palms, hangs the rope on two stakes, and shakes his hands to-and-fro while making a mudra (a Buddhist hand gesture), thereby reaching the Pure Land. In another legend, a nangdo named Deugogok encounters a Buddhist priest paving a road. When the priest appears in his dreams that night, Deugogok inquires of the priest and learns that he has died. Cheongjeong-gaksi burning her fingers, her most recurrent ordeal, has been connected to the Buddhist devotional practice of self-immolation. In particular, the Lotus Sutra describes the bodhisattva Bhaishajyaraja smearing himself in scented oil and setting himself on fire. The Buddha praises his sacrifice and says that one who seeks anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi (the highest level of Buddhist enlightenment) should be willing to set a finger on fire. Relationship to patriarchy Much of the academic research on the Song of Dorang-seonbi and Cheongjeong-gaksi has focused on its relationship to patriarchal social structures. The long-ruling Joseon dynasty (1392—1910) of Korea sought to mold Korean family structures along Neo-Confucian patriarchal values, and a key part of this effort was the promotion of the social ideal of the "virtuous woman" (, ): a wife totally devoted to her husband. Moralistic tracts published by the Joseon government include hundreds of stories of such "virtuous women," including dozens of young women who committed suicide when their husbands died and one tale of a young widow who cut off her hair, ears, and nose to protest her family's suggestions that she remarry. In an important article in 2001, folklorist Cho Hyun-soul first argued that the Song promoted this social ideology among the worshippers, writing: The cultural arbitrary inculcated by Cheongjeong-gaksi and Dorang-seonbae is this rule: that a wife must endure every possible hardship for her husband's sake, and that she is a being whose the earthly duty is to restore her family... Through this symbolic violence, the educational acts on the shamanic ritual ground legitimize the arbitrary; by legitimizing