Cho Hak-yoo's Chanbulga is one of representative Buddhist hymn books, which began to appear from the 1920s, in that it contains a relatively large number (24) of songs, all of them with music, and the songs have been sung until now. Despite its importance and necessity, however, research on the work has not been active. Particularly considering that Buddhist hymns are both music and literature, it is a problem that there has been no literary study on Chanbulga. Thus, as a part of literary research on Chanbulga, this study examined the characteristics of the structure and contents of Chanbulga, and the pattern of Buddha configuration in the work. According to the results, Cho Hak-yoo's Chanbulga is characterized by the contents of the words fit for rituals, the use of easy poetic words, and the specific suggestion of Shakyamuni's merits. These characteristics may explain why Chanbulga has been popular not only when it was published first but also at present. With regard to the configuration of Buddha, Shakyamuni is described as a blesser and the object of prayers and, at the same time, as ‘a human’ with anguish and conflict over life and renouncing the world. The coexistence of the different views of Buddha is the writer's intention, aiming to show that present Shakyamuni worshiped as a blesser was ‘a human’ like ordinary people in the past and, through this, to emphasize that everybody can be like Shakyamuni. That is, Chanbulga is not merely hymns for Shakyamuni but emphasizes that the meaning of Buddhism should be found in ‘Nirvana’ and the readers should make efforts to attain Nirvana. After all, Chanbulga is meaningful not only in the history of literature as a modern development of ritual songs and a modern acculturation of Shakyamuni's life but also in the history of Buddhist culture through leading the Buddhist hymn movement in the Buddhist circle in those days.