Don BAKER. 2014. “The Rise of Neo-Confucianism and the Privatization of

ISSN 1598-2661

Sungkyun
Journal of
East
Asian
Studies
Vol.14 No.2

OCT. 2014

SUNGKYUNKWAN UNIVERSIT Y

Academy of East Asian Studies
Sungkyunkwan University
1

Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies Vol.14 No.2
© 2014 Academy of East Asian Studies. 153-169

Privatization of Buddhism in the Chosŏn Dynasty1

Don BAKER
University of British Columbia

ABSTRACT
The common assumption that Buddhism was persecuted throughout the Chosŏn dynasty needs
to be re-examined. Buddhists were not killed simply because they were Buddhists. State support
for Buddhism was reduced but that resulted in the privatization of Buddhism, not its prohibition.
Buddhism became a private matter rather than a state project. Buddhist writings continued to be
published. Temples, including temples supported by the royal family, continued to operate. And a
small portion of the adult male population lived openly as monks, and occasionally interacted on
friendly terms with Confucian scholar-officials. Instead of trying to eliminate those monks, the
state instead utilized their labor for defense and handicraft production. Moreover, laypeople were
allowed to provide support to monasteries and their inhabitants. The Chosŏn state kept Buddhism
under government control but did not engage in the sort of persecution it later engaged in against
Catholics. Regulation is not persecution.
Keywords: Buddhism, monks, Neo-Confucianism, persecution, rituals, temples, royal family

When the modern scientific study of Korean history was born in the early years of
the twentieth century, it constructed a picture of the Chosŏn dynasty (1392-1910)
shaped by the stagnation hypothesis: the notion that during the five centuries of
that dynasty the Korean people were basically running in place, failing to make
the advances that would have prepared them to cope with the challenges of the
modern world. Japanese scholars asserted that there was no significant progress on
the Korean peninsula after the 15th century as a way to justify the Japanese seizure
of the Korean nation. However, many Korean scholars, in need of an explanation
for the loss of national independence in 1910, accepted that Japanese hypothesis
and continued to promote it even after the Japanese colonizers went home in 1945.
In recent decades, the dynamism of South Korea has stimulated many
scholars to rethink that hypothesis. Pushing the dynamism of the last quarter of
the 20th century onto the past, they have pointed to what they see as significant
changes in Korea in the centuries immediately preceding 1910, claiming, for
example, to have found “sprouts of capitalism” and the rise of a “school of practical
learning.” However, most scholars who study traditional religion have remained
in the grip of the stagnation hypothesis. That doesn’t mean that they ignore the
significance of the emergence of Catholicism at the end of the 18th century, the birth
of Tonghak in 1860, and the rise of Protestantism at the end of that century. But
email of the author: don.baker@ubc.ca

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when they turn to Buddhism, Confucianism, and the folk religion, they generally
depict wheels spinning in place.
Of the three, Buddhism has suffered the most from the lingering influence
of the notion that progress stopped in Korea around 1392. Despite the recent work
by a number of scholars both in Korea and abroad over the last decade or so who
have uncovered evidence for continuing vitality and growth in Korean Buddhism
over the course of the entire dynasty, we are still told over and over again in general
introductions to Korean history, and even in general introductions to the history
of Buddhism in Korea, that Buddhism endured persecution over the entire five
centuries of the Chosŏn dynasty and that it was in much worse shape in 1910
than it had been in the 14th century. When scholars identify interesting Buddhist
thinkers during this period, those monks are usually portrayed as more focused
on defending Buddhism from attacks by Confucian officials and scholars than in
generating new insights into how to achieve enlightenment. At best, Buddhism
during the Chosŏn dynasty is described as consolidating the gains made in earlier
periods by creative thinkers such as Chinul (1158-1210) rather than embarking
on pioneering projects of its own. Buddhism’s penetration of, and integration into,
the folk religion is usually dismissed as proof of how far Buddhism had fallen
from the heights it had occupied in the Silla (trad. 57 BCE-935) and Koryŏ (9181392) periods rather than as evidence that Buddhism was adapting to a changed
environment by expanding its presence among the general population.
I would like to join those who challenge that negative portrayal of Chosŏn
dynasty Buddhism. I will do so by shifting our focus from Buddhist thought
and religious practice to the relationship between Buddhism and the state. In
the process, I will problematize the claim that Buddhism was persecuted by the
Chosŏn state. And I will show that, rather than deterioration, we see change,
which can be interpreted negatively but only if you prioritize the role of the state in
religious life.
First, in order to show that Buddhism played a much more vital role over the
course of the Chosŏn dynasty than it has traditionally been seen as playing, I will
examine its role in rituals used by the government and its rulers for legitimization.
Then I will show that, though Buddhism may have been pushed out of the
dominant position in the court it enjoyed in previous dynasties, it nevertheless
remained in public view, albeit as a private religion rather than an official one.
Ritual Hegemony in Traditional Korea

We often forget in the modern world how close has been the link between religious
ritual and political power. In an ancient Confucian Classic written over two
millennia ago, we can read “the great affairs of state are sacrifice and war” (Chunqiu
Zuozhuan, 5: 379). This succinct statement of two fundamental tools of governance
became an essential element of the political culture of the pre-modern Korea,

1
This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2011330-B00010).

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giving “sacrifice” (ritual) a political importance it did not have in the West.
In the modern West, as Max Weber pointed out, a state has been understood
as “a human community which successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate
use of physical force within a given territory” (Weber 1946, 78). In traditional
East Asia, on the other hand, that definition has to be expanded to read “a human
community that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of ritual
and physical force within a given territory” (Baker 1997; Kim, Han-shin 2014).2
I label this state claim to a monopoly of the legitimate use of ritual within the
territory it controls “ritual hegemony” (Baker 2006, 262).
Neo-Confucianism seized ritual hegemony in the first two centuries of
the Chosŏn dynasty, a hegemony it had not monopolized when the Wang family
sat on the throne during the Koryŏ dynasty. To do so, Neo-Confucianism had to
push Buddhism as well as Daoism and shamanism off the public stage. That took
about two centuries to accomplish. However, the traditional claim that Buddhism
was persecuted when it was pushed aside is an exaggeration. Withdrawal of state
support, which is what Buddhism experienced, is not the same as persecution.
Buddhism continued not only to be tolerated but also received some private support
from the royal family and other members of the ruling elite.
Moreover, in the beginning of the dynasty, in 1392, when Yi Sŏnggye (13351408, r. 1392-1398) unseated the last representative of the Wang family on the
throne, after four and a half centuries of the Koryŏ dynasty, and assumed the
throne for himself and his descendants, he knew that it was essential that he get
his subjects to accept his action as legitimate. There was no outside authority he
could call upon to confirm his legitimacy. The Emperor of Ming China (1368-1644)
would only ratify rule by a king of Korea who had already been accepted by the
Korean elite as legitimate. Therefore he, and those who supported his claim to the
throne, had to turn to legitimizing ritual and rhetoric to convince those whom he
intended to rule over that he had the right to do so.
There were a number of tools available they could use to establish his
legitimacy. They could, and did, claim he had been given the Mandate of Heaven
(ch’ŏnmyŏng), as defined by Confucianism. But Yi, and some of his supporters
as well, knew Confucianism was not yet strong enough to be the sole provider
of legitimizing religious rhetoric and ritual. Instead, in addition to wielding the
Mandate of Heaven, Yi had to draw on a number of different sources, among which
was Buddhism. He and his supporters also made claims of supernatural sanction
and of extraordinary military prowess to justify his seizing the throne from the
Wang family and establishing a new dynasty (Baker 2013).
Once he was on the throne, Yi is portrayed in the Sillok and other sources
as acting like the Confucian monarch his officials wanted him to be, most of the
time. He relied on Confucian-scholar officials, and he issued pronouncements filled

2
Kim, Han-shin (2014) shows how the Chinese state during the Song dynasty (960-1127)
broadened its attempts to regulate popular religion instead of trying to eradicate it. This is similar to the
approach adopted by the Korean government toward Buddhism, and the attempt adopted by successive
pre-modern Japanese governments toward religious institutions.

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with standard Confucian rhetoric. However, the official records report that he also
continued to turn to Buddhism both for personal consolation and also because he
thought that there were still many people in Korea who expected their monarch
to show that he had the support of the Buddha by sponsoring Buddhist rituals and
supporting Buddhist monks and temples (Vermeersch 2013).
It is well known that he appointed Chach’o, also known as Muhak (13271405), as his Royal Preceptor and also appointed another monk, Chogu (?-1395),
as the State Preceptor. Less well known are the many Buddhist rituals Yi held at
his court. They included prayers for warding off disorder in nature (sojae), rituals
to console the spirits of the dead (kijae, ch’ŏnhoe), and rituals to ask the Buddha’s
help in overcoming illness (tobul pyŏngyu). Moreover, he sometimes treated large
numbers of monks to a feast, and provided financial support for the printing of
sutras (Han Ugŭn 1993, 29-30 and 50-52). There are 60 instances recorded in the
T’aejo Sillok of T’aejo (Yi Sŏnggye’s posthumous name as founder of the dynasty)
sponsoring Buddhist rituals or entertaining monks over the course of the six
years of his reign. He also mandated that the Buddhist Ritual of Water and Land
(suryukchae) be performed under royal auspices twice a year (Choi Mihwa 2009).
We also find Buddhist rhetoric being used alongside Confucian rhetoric
deep into the 15th century. For example, in the Songs of Dragons Flying to Heaven
(Yongbi ŏch’ŏn’ga), songs composed during the reign of Taejo’s grandson Sejong
(r. 1419-1450) to praise (and legitimize rule by) the Yi royal family, there are 125
cantos of praise for the Yi family. I found only twelve that explicitly mention the
Mandate of Heaven. However, thirty-one of the cantos laud the military skill
displayed by Yi and his ancestors. And canto 11 tells us that, after Yi Sŏng-gye’s
great-grandfather prayed to the Bodhisattva Kwanŭm, a monk appeared to him in a
dream and promised that he would soon have a son to continue the family line (Hoyt
1971). This episode is also reported in the T’aejo Sillok.
However, Confucianism slowly gained hegemony in government rituals,
even though quite a few of the kings of Chosŏn personally believed in Buddhism (Pu
Namchul 2011). As Confucianism began to monopolize the ritual tools wielded by
the government, Buddhism had to retreat to the sidelines. In the process, it suffered
a withdrawal of government support.
The third king of the dynasty, T’aejong, eliminated the official positions of
Royal Preceptor (Wangsa) and State Preceptor (Kuksa) that had existed since early
in the Koryŏ dynasty (Yi Chaech’ang 1993, 151). He also reduced the number of
officially recognized Buddhist denominations from eleven to seven. His successor
King Sejong reduced that number further to two, one meditation-oriented
denomination and one doctrine-oriented denomination. He also reduced the
number of temples, and of the monks allowed to dwell in those temples, until only
36 temples, with a total population of less than 4,000 monks and approximately
the same number of temple slaves, were granted official sanction (Pu Namchul
2005). Then, a little over a century later, King Myŏngjong (r. 1545-1567) abolished
the official civil service examination system for Buddhist monks (sŭngkwa) that
had been established in 958. He also repealed the law that provided for official
certification (toch’ŏpche), and therefore official recognition, of clerical status, ending

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tax exemptions for monks and for temple land (Yi Chaech’ang 1993, 155-56).3
Buddhism after the Withdrawal of State Support

This is not persecution. It is simply the withdrawal of state support. Men could still
be monks, though they would have no official status as such and were supposed to
be subject to the same taxes as commoners. Moreover, it is not clear how effective
these measures were. Instead of the 36 temples mandated by King Sejong, hundreds
continued to operate. In fact, into the second half of the dynasty, there were still
around 1,500 temples on the peninsula (Pak Pyŏngsŏn 2009, 58). And the number
of monks must have remained substantially more than King Sejong decreed was
the maximum. Otherwise, the government could not have called on the aid of a
monks’ army during the resistance against the Hideyoshi invasions of the 1590s.
Moreover, since even kings and their wives occasionally encounter areas
of unpleasant uncertainty in their lives, such as when disease threatens them or a
member of their family, Buddhist practices were not completely eliminated from
the palace grounds. Nor would the potential power of the Buddha be ignored when
a natural disaster such as a drought threatened the well-being of the inhabitants
of the peninsula and of the dynasty which ruled over them. Seeking supernatural
assistance to supplement the beneficial impact virtuous behavior was believed to
have on nature, even kings who had sought to eliminate Buddhism from the public
sphere would sometimes invite monks into their palaces to pray privately for them
or for royal offspring, or they would permit the women of the palace to discretely
sponsor a Buddhist ritual (Han Ugŭn 1993, 106-08; Kamata Shigeo 1988, 192-203).
When the dynasty was still in its adolescence and Neo-Confucian strictures
on official behavior had not yet solidified into barriers even kings could not ignore,
a government printing office (the Chujaso) could be used to reprint Buddhist texts
(Kang Sinhang 1990, 251-52). In another sign that anti-Buddhist sentiment did not
yet totally dominate the court, one of the first prose works published in han’gŭl
was the Sŏkpo sangjŏl, a life of the Buddha compiled, edited, and translated by the
future king Sejo for his father Sejong. Furthermore, when Sejo took the throne, he
established a Buddhist sutra printing office (Kan’gyŏng togam), which published
eleven other Buddhist works in the new Korean alphabet as well as some in pure
Chinese. Even as late as King Sŏngjong’s reign, the supposedly anti-Buddhist
Chosŏn government was still publishing Buddhist texts (Kang 1990, 221-86).
In more striking evidence of the lingering influence of Buddhism in the
court, a Buddhist ritual for the dead, the Buddhist Ritual of Water and Land
(suryukchae), continued to be performed as an official state rite until the last decade
of the 15th century. After that, even when the kings stopped using that ritual to
officially console the spirits of deceased members of the royal family, it maintained
its popularity among the general population and even among some of the
supposedly staunchly Confucian elite (Choi Mihwa 2009). Books explaining how

3
For more on the Korean withdrawal of official support for Buddhism, and the reasons for it, see
Han 1993 and Goulde 1985.

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to carry out that ritual were published in the 17th and 18th centuries (Nam Hee-sook
2012, 9-12). If Buddhism had actually been persecuted, it is unlikely as elaborate a
ritual as this could have been continued to be performed.
Moreover, unwilling to waste the talents of even those with as low a social
status as the Chosŏn dynasty accorded monks, the Chosŏn court availed itself of
the manpower and expertise monks represented. Monk-healers were sometimes
dispatched when an outbreak of disease threatened the population of a local area
and monks were attached, along with shamans, to some official public health
clinics (Han 1993, 135-38). Monk-artisans were required to manufacture paper
and other products for the use of government officials (Kim Kapchu 1994, 330-31).
And, for a brief while in the mid-fifteenth century, monks were even authorized to
make up for their loss of land and slaves by acting as tribute contractors, profiting
as middlemen between those who produced the goods the government demanded
in payment of the tribute tax and those who owed that tax but did not have ready
access to the specified tribute items (Han 1993, 134-35). There were even monks
who were called upon to assume military duties and defend Korea’s borders against
bandits in the north and against pirates along the southern coasts (An Kyehyŏn
1983, 326-35).
This does not fit the usual description of religious persecution. Regulation
and exploitation are not persecution, especially when those who are not associated
with that religious community are subjected to similar regulation and exploitation.
However, the growing domination of Neo-Confucian values over Chosŏn dynasty
politics meant that, by the end of the 16th century, all official support for Buddhism
as a religion, even the official division of monks into two denominations, was
ended. No longer did the government grant monks or monasteries any privileges or
tax exemptions denied commoners, nor were government printing facilities used to
print Buddhist texts any more. Instead, the government increasingly treated monks
and their monasteries as simply another resource available to serve the needs of the
state.
Shamanism and Daoism in Confucian Korea

The government did the same with shamanism and Daoism for a while as well.
There was an official Daoist shrine until the end of the 16th century. The Hall for
Enshrining Deities (Sogyŏkchŏn) began the dynasty with an official staff of six
or seven. However, as the Neo-Confucian tone of the court grew stronger, those
numbers were reduced and the Hall for Enshrining Deities itself was downgraded
to an Office for Enshrining Deities (Sokyŏksŏ) in 1466. As the Office for Enshrining
Deities, however, it survived for over another century, only to be destroyed during
Hideyoshi’s invasions and never rebuilt (Yi Chongŭn 1988). For the rest of the
dynasty, Daoism did not play an official role, unless we want to include in official
Daoism the shrines to the Chinese god-general Guan Yu, which appeared in Seoul
and then other parts of the country after the sixteenth-century invasions.
As for shamanism, it was held in more disdain than Daoism was, but it
was also more ingrained in the popular culture. The government could not afford
to ignore the popular belief in the powers of shamans, particularly when the

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people were faced with epidemics or famines. In the first part of the dynasty, some
shamans held official government appointment. King Sejong, for example, though
he condemned privately-held kut as lewd rituals, appointed shamans to posts in
an official public health clinic outside the city walls, the Hwarinsŏ, a precedent his
successors followed off-and-on for at least another three centuries (Yu Tongshik
1975, 98; Han Ugŭn 1993, 185-86). In the first half of the dynasty, shamans were
also appointed to another government agency, the Hall of the Heavenly Bodies
(Sŏngsuch’ŏng), which, despite its astronomical name, was actually the palace
shaman shrine. Shamans serving there were exempt from the law forbidding
shamans from entering the capital since, at least through the reign of King
Yŏnsan’gun (r. 1494-1506), there were still some in government who believed that
shamans could help protect the health of the royal family by performing rituals
honoring the gods of the sun, the moon, the planets, and important stars and
constellations (Yu Tongshik 1975, 198-99).
There were also shamans assigned to serve in local government offices.
Spirit halls were established within the grounds of those offices for the use of those
shamans (Yu Tongshik 1975, 203-04; 217). Moreover, shamans were occasionally
mobilized by government officials, both in the capital region and in the provinces,
to participate in a number of state-sanctioned rituals, such as rituals for rain in
times of drought, rituals for the recovery of the health of an ill member of the
royal family, or rituals in honor of local guardian deities (Yi P’iryŏng 1993, 2326). In a further sign of official state recognition of shamans, there was a nationwide occupational tax on shamans similar to the tax on artisans and fishermen (Im
Haksŏng 1993).
Buddhism in the Second Half of the Chosŏn Dynasty

Buddhism was taken more seriously, and granted more responsibility than either
Daoism or shamanism. One of the responsibilities Buddhism was supposed to
shoulder was the defense of the dynasty. When the Japanese invaded Korea in 1592,
King Sŏnjo (r. 1567-1608) asked the monk Hyujŏng (1520-1604) to organize all of
Korea’s monks into a fighting force to defend Korean soil against Hideyoshi’s forces.
Hyujŏng did as his king asked him to do, creating an army 5,000 monks strong
(that’s more young, healthy monks than the total number of monks Sejong’s decree
had allowed!). Impressed by how well those monks fought, for much of the rest
of the dynasty Korea’s kings relied heavily on monk-soldiers. Under royal orders,
monks built and defended the fortresses on both Mt. Namhan and Mt. Pukhan.
A nation-wide network of monastery-military outposts was established and there
were even monks serving as a naval fighting force (An Kyehyŏn 1983, 325-404; Yo˘˘
ŭn’gyŏng 1992).
In trying to retrieve some of its subjects who had been taken to Japan after
the war, the Korean government even dispatched a monk, Hyujŏng’s disciple
Yujŏng (1544-1610), to Japan as a diplomat to negotiate with the Japanese warlords.
A century later, in the 18th century, Yujŏng and Hyujŏng were both enshrined in
P’yoch’ungsa (Shrine in Praise of Loyalty), an official shrine in Miryang supported
by the government, in recognition of the contributions they made to Korea’s

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security (Park Saeyoung 2011).
The official recognition given to two monks in the second half of the
supposedly anti-Buddhist Chosŏn dynasty shows that Buddhism still maintained
a certain amount of respectability in some circles. It may have lost its power to
provide official legitimizing rituals for the government, but it remained a religious
force on the peninsula. In fact, even the royal family, in their private capacity,
continued to support some Buddhist shrines. It was standard practice throughout
the dynasty, all the way into the 19th century, for kings to endow wŏndang, Buddhist
votive temples, for deceased predecessors and other members of the royal family
(Kim Sung-Eun Thomas 2013, 10-11). One contemporary scholar has found records
attesting to the existence of over 208 such Buddhist prayer halls being erected and
maintained over the entire five centuries of the dynasty, with almost half, 103 of
them, being built after 1600 (Park Pyŏngsŏn 2009, 58). One king in the late 18th
century, King Chŏngjo (r. 1776-1800), went even farther and had an entire temple
renovated, renamed, and dedicated to his father, the unfortunate “coffin king,” Sado
seja (1735-1762). The reconstruction of that temple, Yongjusa, was finished in 1795,
four centuries after the supposedly anti-Confucian Chosŏn dynasty emerged in
Seoul (Yu Ponghak 2001, 66-68).
These wŏndang, and Yongjusa, however, were seen as projects of the royal
family as a family, not of the state as the state. Despite occasional criticism from
officials who wanted the royal family to expel all Buddhist elements from their
family life, these practices survived. They survived probably because the royal
family felt the need to do more than just conduct Confucian rituals to help their
loved ones who had left this world and were now in another realm. But they also
may have served indirectly to support the power of the royal family, in two ways.
First of all, the kings of Korea were supposed to be paragons of Confucian
virtue. One very important Confucian virtue is filial piety. Erecting a Buddhist
votive temple for the repose of the spirit of a parent or ancestor is a manifestation of
filial piety. Therefore supporting such prayer halls, even though they were Buddhist
in nature, helped strengthen the image of the Yi kings as virtuous and therefore
worthy of ruling the country. In addition, by resisting the calls of some officials to
end this non-Confucian practice, the kings were able to show their officials that
those officials did not control them. Continuing to support rituals their officials
disapproved of showed that the kings were more powerful than those officials.
The continuing building of wŏndang, and government support for the
temples which maintained them, shows that it is an exaggeration to say that
Buddhism was persecuted during the Chosŏn dynasty. I know what full-scale
persecution means. I’ve studied the early history of the Catholic Church in Korea.
Full-scale persecution doesn’t mean clerics beings forbidden to enter Seoul in their
clerical robes. It means clerics being hunted down and killed wherever they are in
the country. Full-scale persecution doesn’t mean limits on the number of houses
of worship. It means that no houses of worship whatsoever are permitted by the
government. And full-scale persecution doesn’t mean that practitioners are treated
with disdain but left alone. It means that believers, male and female alike, are
killed. Full-scale religious persecution means an attempt to eradicate the religious

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beliefs and activities of a particular religious community. Such persecution needs to
be distinguished from regulation and control.
Buddhism was regulated and privatized, not persecuted. We see the
curtailment of government support but Buddhism survived. It survived not only
in the villages and mountains of Korea but even, as a private practice, among
members of the royal family. It lost its status as the official religion, but it remained
a significant factor in the religious culture of Korea. It was popularized and
privatized, not persecuted.
Buddhism and Law in Korea

However, to say that Buddhism did not undergo a full-scale persecution is not to
say that Buddhist monks were treated just the same as other commoners. Quite
the contrary. The state let them know that it considered their choice of a religious
profession to be unwise. The state wanted young men to get married and produce a
new generation of taxpayers. Monks didn’t do that. As a result, the government tried
to make a monk’s life a fairly uncomfortable one so that few men would choose that
option. The Chosŏn dynasty took the law code of Ming China as the foundation
for its own laws. It found in the Ming laws ample justification for the control and
mistreatment of monks. For example, the Ming codes forbade the establishment or
enlarging of any temples without government authorization. Those who violated
that clause in the law code were to be “sent to the distant frontiers in military
exile.” And if a monk was ordained without an official ordainment certificate,
they were supposed to be punished “by 80 strokes of beating with a heavy stick”
(Great Ming Code 2005, 71). The state also took it upon itself to enforce monastic
discipline. The Ming Code stated that if a monk violated the monastic requirement
of clerical chastity, they would be punished “by 80 strokes with the heavy stick, and
they shall return to lay status” (Great Ming Code, 87).
When Korean Confucians started building private academies in the 16th
century, they sometimes found that there were Buddhist temples on the grounds
they claimed for those academies. Rather than chase the monks away, in many
cases the academies forced those monks to help in the construction of the academy
buildings and to provide the students in those academies with items such as paper
and brushes that the students needed. They treated the monks as their servants (Yi
Suhwan 2001, 64-99).
Occasionally the state took active steps to reduce the number of monks,
claiming that many of them were using the cloak of monastic status to avoid their
tax obligations. The harshest anti-Buddhist polices were during the reign of King
Chungjong (r. 1506-1544), when over 3,500 men who claimed to be monks in
Chŏlla province were forcibly laicized and over half the temples in that province
were demolished (Yi Pongch’un 1997; Chungjong sillok yr 34. m 6, 12 [musin]).
However, such a strict anti-monastic policy was not strictly enforced for very long
and soon there were again more monks and temples in the countryside than the
law allowed.
We can find a few cases of individual monks who were harshly punished
by the state, but, in those cases, the monks were not punished merely for being

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monks but because they appeared to pose a threat to the state. One such monk
was interrogated by the State Tribunal (which means that he was tortured) in 1676
and then executed because he had claimed to be not only a living Buddha but also
the posthumous son of a former crown prince. He may have survived execution
if he had only claimed to be a living Buddha but the lèse-majesté of his claim to
be of royal descent sealed his fate (Ch’oe Chongsŏng 2013). Another famous case
occurred just a few years later, in 1688, when a monk named Yŏhwan came to
believe that he was destined to replace the royal family and rule over the peninsula.
He promised his followers that a torrential rain would flood Seoul and wash away
the palace, making it possible for him to seize control. Even though the most
subversive action he actually took was to climb a mountain above Seoul and wait
for that flood, he, too, suffered the full force of the state’s anger. However, he was
accused of treason and resorting to sorcery, not simply of being a Buddhist monk
(Sukchong sillok yr. 14 m. 8, 1 (shinch’uk)).
Although it is clear that officially the Chosŏn dynasty was ideologically antiBuddhist, the government used institutional means, not large-scale persecution, to
curtail the role of Buddhism in the Neo-Confucian-dominated government. Unlike
Catholics, Buddhists were not killed for being Buddhists (Roux 2012; Rausch
2012).4 Instead, the government used both a carrot and a stick to Confucianize elite
society.
The carrot was the civil service examination system. With official Buddhist
exams and titles eliminated, the primary route to power and wealth for an
ambitious young man from a respectable family was to study Confucianism so
that he could pass the civil service exams and become an official. Studying for
those exams took up so much of their time that they hardly had time to read
Buddhist texts, even if they moved temporarily to the peace and quiet of a temple
or hermitage to study the Confucian Classics.
The stick was the limit placed on the number of tax-free monks, and on
tax-free land. Even though those limits were rarely, if ever, strictly enforced, they
placed monks in a vulnerable position. A young man had to be either worried about
where he was going to get his next meal or a very strong believer in Buddhism to
risk becoming a monk.
Yet some did so. Moreover, Buddhism appears to have penetrated the general
population, those who were not concerned with studying for the civil service
exams, to a greater extent during the Chosŏn dynasty than it had previously. There
are number of signs of the continued vitality of Buddhism into the second half of
the dynasty. For example, Buddhist music survived. Pŏmp’ae, which is not a quiet
sort of music that could be played in times of deadly persecution, continued to be
played into the eighteenth century at least (Lee Byong Won 1971).
And, when the government stopped printing Buddhist texts, the people

4
Roux persuasively argues that, even though Catholics were much more likely to be subjected to
the death penalty than Buddhists were, even the treatment of Catholics in the 19th century should not be
categorized as systematic persecution, since the execution of Catholics for being Catholics was sporadic and
localized.

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stepped in to help monks do so. In the latter half of the dynasty, a number
of Buddhist ritual guides as well as reproductions of sutras, some in han’gŭl
translation, were published and made available to the general public. Sometimes
even local Confucian scholars and local officials supported those publications
(Younghee Lee 2012). Such publishing of Buddhist texts continued right up until
the end of the dynasty (Nam Hee-sook 2012).
When I was still relatively new to the field of Koreans studies and had not
yet learned to doubt the narrative about Buddhism being persecuted during the
Chosŏn dynasty, I was quite surprised to find an eighteenth-century publication
of the Sutra of the Medicine Buddha (Yaksagyŏng) with the names of the many lay
people who had supported its publication attached (they appear to have been
mostly women). I would have been even more surprised at the time if I had learned
then that a king himself had arranged for the publication of another sutra, the Sutra
of Filial Piety (Pumo ŭnjunggyŏng) (Kim Chongmyŏng 2012, 210) or that, in 1853,
the Chief State Councilor and brother-in-law of King Sunjo had sponsored the
publication of yet another sutra, the Diamond Sutra (Kŭmganggyŏng) (Nam Heesook 2012, 99).
Lay Buddhists did more than just help monks publish ritual guides and
sutras. They also helped them overcome the financial difficulties the temples
had fallen into after the withdrawal of government support. Just as they formed
kye, mutual credit associations, to help with Confucian ritual obligations such as
marriages and funerals and with the expenses of maintaining bridges over local
streams and helping each other out in case of a fire or a flood, they also formed
temple mutual credit associations. One scholar has identified at least 268 sach’algye
operating in the second half of the dynasty. They supported temples in a number
of ways, such as the donation of supplies, agricultural lands, and cash; temple
restoration; donation of Buddhist statuary, paintings, bells, and other objects; sutra
publication; contributions of labour; educational activities; and specifically religious
activities, such as forming groups to chant mantras or invocations of the Buddha’s
name. Sometimes lower-level government officials or military officers joined these
kye (Han Sangkil 2012, 44 and 56).
Differing treatment for Buddhists and Catholics

Buddhists clearly were openly involved in activities that Catholics, when they were
being persecuted in the 19th century, could not engage in as openly. Buddhists even
began running their own formal educational institutions in the second half of the
dynasty, without any interference from the government (Lee Jong-su and Seon Joon
Sunim 2012). And there is plenty of evidence that Confucian scholars were not
afraid to meet with and talk with Buddhist monks or read their literature, though
a similar association with a Catholic cleric or Catholic literature would have been
deadly (Walraven 2007; Kim Sung-Eun Thomas 2013, 7-9). Buddhist kasa may even
have circulated in Seoul in the 19th century (Lee Younghee 2012).
Perhaps the strongest evidence that persecution is too strong a word to
describe the government and societal attitude toward Buddhism in the Chosŏn
dynasty is the behavior of Tasan Chŏng Yagyong (1762-1836). In 1801, Tasan was

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sent into exile for 18 years because of his youthful involvement with the illegal
Korean Catholic community. One of his brothers was also exiled. Another brother
was executed. One would think that would have convinced Tasan to keep his
distance from any group that was being persecuted out of fear that he may be
caught up in another religious persecution. However, when he was in exile in
Kangjin, he became friends with a Buddhist monk at a temple a short walk from
his hut. He also left written records of his friendship with various monks and of his
respect for their dedication to self-cultivation, though he also made it clear he did
not agree with them on many philosophical issues (Kim Daeyeol 2012).
Conclusion

This short overview of the relationship between Buddhism and the government,
and Buddhism and society, during the Chosŏn dynasty reveals that, though it is
misleading to say the Buddhism suffered full-scale persecution by the Chosŏn
dynasty government, the relationship Buddhism had with its government and with
the Korean people undoubtedly changed. Buddhism lost the favoured position
it had enjoyed with Korean governments before the emergence of the Chosŏn
dynasty. Neo-Confucian was able to establish ideological superiority in the political
arena and therefore came to establish hegemony over official rituals used to
legitimize political authority.
Neo-Confucianism was able to establish hegemony for several reasons. First
of all, Koreans wanted to appear to be up-to-date in Chinese eyes, since China was,
in Korean eyes, the most advanced civilization they knew. In order to appear upto-date, they had to move beyond the official respect accorded Buddhism during
China’s Tang dynasty (618-907) and adopt Neo-Confucian ideology and rituals of
China’s Song dynasty (960-1279) as the primary tools of governance. Second, NeoConfucianism was grounded in a philosophy centered on the relationship between
society and government and therefore was more practical for the everyday business
of governing. It assumed that human beings were social beings and that the most
important duty of human beings was to interact appropriately with their fellow
human beings. Governments by their very nature focus on human beings and strive
to get them to cooperate harmoniously. Therefore Neo-Confucianism appeared to
be the best philosophy for such a task. Third, the government was able to use the
tools of government, its taxation powers in particular, to make Buddhism a less
attractive alternative for members of the elite than Neo-Confucianism was.
However, the Neo-Confucian government was unable to totally eradicate
Buddhism from Korean soil, nor did it ever seriously try to do so. First of all,
Buddhism was superior to Neo-Confucianism in dealing with less political and
more spiritual matters. Neo-Confucianism doesn’t hold out any hope for a better
life for ourselves or our loved ones beyond the grave. Buddhism does. NeoConfucianism doesn’t offer a clear explanation of why we find life so frustrating
at times. Buddhism does. Finally, Neo-Confucianism offers no techniques for
accessing supernatural power to overcome the problems that are an inevitable part
of human existence. Buddhism does.
Neo-Confucianism and Buddhism may have been ideologically incompatible

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(there are plenty of anti-Buddhist Neo-Confucian texts which point that out) but
otherwise they could work well together, as long as they both tacitly accepted a
division of responsibility. It took a while to work out that division. But finally the
royal family and members of the yangban elite came to see Buddhism as a private
matter and Neo-Confucianism as a public matter and therefore the two were
allowed to co-exist. That co-existence is particularly evident in the second half
of the Chosŏn dynasty, when government attempts to curtail Buddhist resources
subsided. Moreover, the position of Buddhism under that unspoken agreement was
strengthened by its ability to reach the masses in a way the more intellectual and
rigorous Neo-Confucianism could not.
As Buddhism merged with the folk religion, it gained one more reason for
its survival. According to the Confucian Mandate of Heaven, a legitimate ruler
must have the support of the people, or, at least, not their active opposition. Since
Buddhism had a long history in Korea and during the Chosŏn dynasty sunk even
deeper roots into popular culture, a ruler who wielded the might of his government
against it would run up against popular resistance. To totally outlaw Buddhism,
in the way Catholicism was outlawed, would have cost the monarchy much of
the popular support Confucianism said it should maintain, support it needed to
sustain itself. Moreover, by occasionally supporting Buddhism privately, the royal
family and some members of the governing elite actually gave the masses reason
to support the government, since they appeared at times to share the religious
orientation of the general population.
The unspoken compromise that was finally formed between the NeoConfucian government and the Buddhist religion may have been one of the factors
that allowed the Chosŏn dynasty to last so much longer than dynasties in China
and ruling coalitions in Japan had. Ironically, Buddhism, though it was forced out
of an openly political role, ended up providing one of the props that strengthened
the political power structure that defines the Chosŏn dynasty. That role, rather
than the role of a “persecuted religion,” is how we should remember Buddhism in
the Chosŏn dynasty.

GLOSSARY

Chach’o
Chinul
Chogu
Chŏngjo
ch’ŏnhoe
ch’ŏnmyŏng
Chosŏn
Chujaso

自超
知訥
祖丘
正祖
薦會
天命
朝鮮
鑄字所

Chungjong
Guan Yu
han’gŭl
Hideyoshi
Hwarinso˘˘
Hyujŏng
Kan’gyŏng togam
Kangjin

中宗
關羽
한글
秀吉
活人署
休靜
刊經都監
康津

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kasa
kijae
Koryŏ
Kuksa
Kŭmganggyŏng
Kwanŭm
kye
Miryang
Ming
Muhak
Myŏngjong
Namhan
pŏmp’ae
Pukhan
Pumo ŭnjunggyŏng
P’yoch’ungsa
sach’algye
Sado seja
Sejong
Sillok
Sogyŏkchŏn

歌辭
忌齋
高麗
國師
金剛經
觀音
契
密陽
明
無學
明宗
南漢
梵唄
北漢
父母恩重經
表忠寺
寺刹契
思悼世子
世宗
實錄
昭格殿

Sogyŏkso˘˘
sojae
Sŏngsuch’ŏng
Sŏnjo
Sukchong
suryukchae
T’aejo
Tang
Tasan Chŏng Yagyong
tobul pyŏngyu
toch’ŏpche
Tonghak
Wang
Wangsa
wŏndang
Yaksagyŏng
Yi Sŏnggye
Yongbi ŏch’ŏn’ga
Yongjusa
Yŏnsan’gun
Yujŏng

昭格暑
消災
星宿廳
宣祖
肅宗
水陸齋
太祖
唐
茶山 丁若鏞
禱佛病愈
度牒制
東學
王
王師
願堂
藥師經
李成桂
龍飛御天歌
龍珠寺
燕山君
惟政

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