Korean Buddhism

An image of Gautama Buddha at Seokguram Grotto, Gyeongju, in South Korea

Korean Buddhism is distinguished from other forms of Buddhism by its attempt to resolve what its early practitioners saw as inconsistencies within the Mahayana Buddhist traditions that they received from foreign countries. To address this, they developed a new holistic approach to Buddhism that became a distinct form, an approach characteristic of virtually all major Korean thinkers. The resulting variation is called Tongbulgyo ("interpenetrated Buddhism"), a form that sought to harmonize previously arising disputes among scholars (a principle called hwajaeng 和諍).[1]

Centuries after Buddhism originated in India, the Mahayana tradition arrived in China through the Silk Road in the 1st century CE via Tibet; it then entered the Korean peninsula in the 4th century during the Three Kingdoms Period, from where it was transmitted to Japan. In Korea, it was adopted as the state religion of 3 constituent polities of the Three Kingdoms Period, first by the Goguryeo (also known as Goryeo) in 372 CE, by the Silla (Gaya) in 528 CE, and by the Baekje in 552 CE.[2]

As it now stands, Korean Buddhism consists mostly of the Seon Lineage, primarily represented by the Jogye and Taego Orders. The Korean Seon has a strong relationship with other Mahayana traditions that bear the imprint of Chan teachings as well as the closely related Zen. Other sects, such as the modern revival of the Cheontae lineage, the Jingak Order (a modern esoteric sect), and the newly formed Won, have also attracted sizable followings.[citation needed]

Korean Buddhism has contributed much to East Asian Buddhism, especially to early Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Tibetan schools of Buddhist thought.[3][4][5][6]

  1. ^ Choi, Yong Joon (30 June 2006). Dialogue and antithesis. Vol. 2. Hermit Kingdom Press. ISBN 978-1-59689-056-5.
  2. ^ Lee Injae, Owen Miller, Park Jinhoon, Yi Hyun-Hae, 2014, Korean History in Maps, Cambridge University Press, pp. 44-49, 52-60.
  3. ^ Buswell, Robert E. (2005). Currents and countercurrents : Korean influences on the East Asian Buddhist traditions. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press. ISBN 0824827627.
  4. ^ Chunwei Song (Oct. 2008). Heroes Brought Buddhism to the East of the Sea: A Fully Annotated Translation of The Preface of Haedong Kosŭng Chŏn Archived 2019-08-02 at the Wayback Machine, Sino-Platonic Papers 183
  5. ^ "Korean Buddhism". Asiarecipe.com. 2003-08-14. Archived from the original on 2014-04-24. Retrieved 2012-03-06.
  6. ^ The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism: Conversion, Contestation, and Memory - Matthew Kapstein - Google Books. Oxford University Press, USA. 2000-08-28. ISBN 9780198030072. Archived from the original on 2023-01-15. Retrieved 2012-03-06.

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