Cho'e Che-u's Tonghak Doctrine: It's Sources and Meanings, 1860-1864

CHO'E CHE-U'S TONGHAK DOCTRINE: IT'S SOURCES AND MEANINGS, 1860-1864¦----by Key Ray Chong Texas Tech, University The Tonghak doctrine known as "Eastern Learning" has undergone a series ofchanges in both theory and practice since its inception in I860.1 Historically it began as a strictly religious movement whose purpose was to renew or revitalize the forces of the major existing religions (Confucianism, Buddhism , Taoism and shamanism, or traditionalism) by the infusion of Christian doctrine. Tonghak was originally apolitical and neither defied nor rejected the existing political regime. It did not believe that political reform could result in peace of mind for the individual. It encouraged its followers to rely on personal salvation and self-enlightenment, rather than external authority, for the answers to the questions which troubled them. The sources of Tonghak are numerous. Broadly speaking, Tonghak is the 1. Chong-sik Lee, The Politics of Korean Nationalism (The University of California Press, 1965), pp. 19-33. See also Benjamin B. Weems, Reform, Rebellion and the Heavenly Way (The University of Arizona Press, 1964), p. ix: Lee has treated the Tonghak movement as a beginning of Korean nationalism, whereas Weems has regarded the Tonghak doctrine as "quasi-religious ideology," connected with political movements. 71 72/Chong product of the assimilation of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism and Christianity into the traditional social structure. Consequently it is a very difficult task to define precisely the influence of each of these religions on Tonghak doctrine since an idea borrowed from one religion was frequently blended with a concept adapted from another. The resulting eclecticism or syncretism represents a unique product which no longer can be neatly related to its original source. For example, the term Heaven {ch'ön) originated in Chinese classics or indigenous Korean myths, but it could also refer to a Christian Heaven. In other words, many Tonghak terms or concepts may contain many different connotations going back to both Chinese and Christian sources. Therefore the Tonghak concept ch'ön cannot be entirely Eastern or Western, but a synthesis of both in its meaning as well as origin. For another example, the term Confucianism may mean the philosophy of any Confucianists (Confucius, Mencius, Hsun Tzu, Tung Chung-shu and Wang Yang-ming), or it may mean a combination of two or three of these Confucianists . Likewise the same can apply to Buddhism, Taoism and the like from which Tonghak derives its main ideas. Added to this kind of frustration are the expositions and quotations of certain Tonghak ideas on and/or taken from either Chinese or Christian sources : they are not only unsystematic but also make it difficult to establish conceptual connections between the idea and its source, or the exact origin of the idea within given conceptual framework. Moreover Ch'oe Che-u, the chiefinterpreter ofTonghak doctrine, does not often give any credit for what other thinkers have done, nor does he try, but treats the borrowed ideas as if they were his own. Last, but not least, the study of Tonghak doctrine may further be complicated by our own misunderstanding or distortion of it, resulting from differences in both time and place. Our first question then is how to study such a complicated doctrine as Tonghak. The answer to this question seems to be two-fold: first, one can study Tonghak doctrine with the assumption that "ideas are functions of the persons who express them and the shape that ideas take is relative to the culture and era in which they develop and are used."2 Secondly, it is also possible to examine Tonghak on the grounds that "there are internal standards of validity in the ideas themselves."3 Nevertheless, in many instances, 2.Karl Manheim, Ideology and Utopia: Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge (New York, 1936), p. 50. 3.Max Lerner, Ideas Are Weapons (New York, 1939), p. 8. Tonghak Doctrine/73 these two approaches "seem to overlap and it is difficult to separate one from another. Any idea or doctrine must be considered within the context of the prevailing realities—social, economic, political, cultural or otherwise. But this should not be taken in terms of causes and effects, that is to say...