Empire of the Dharma: Korean and Japanese Buddhism, 1877–1912 by Hwansoo Ilmee Kim (review)

Empire of the Dharma is one of several books published in recent years that treats the history of Korean Buddhism from the end of the Chosŏn period to the Japanese colonial period. The primary contribution of Hwansoo Ilmee Kim’s research is to both problematize and attempt to correct the oversimplified tripartite approach of analyzing the participants in and proponents of Korean Buddhism in this pivotal epoch of early modern Korean history. Hitherto, Korean scholars have classified most individuals active in this period, such as Yi Hoegwang (1862–1933) and Han Yongun (1879–1944), as either reformers, nationalists, or collaborators with the Japanese. Furthermore, for the most part, the Japanese players in the unfolding drama are artlessly portrayed as single-minded proponents or pawns of the Japanese imperium, whose sole purpose was to advance the Japanese agenda of colonizing Korea.

Using Korean and Japanese Buddhist newspapers, journals, and other government documents, Hwansoo Kim’s book provides a more balanced treatment of Korean Buddhism in the late Chosŏn period than other books on this period because it provides contextualization not found elsewhere. For instance, chapter 1, “The History of Buddhism in Korea and Japan” (pp. 25–70), describes in great detail the subordination of the Korean Buddhist church to the Chosŏn state. Most treatments of Chosŏn Buddhism describe the curtailing and combining of Buddhist traditions in the fifteenth century and the law proscribing monks from entering the capital, and some describe the key role played by monks that mobilized during the Hideyoshi invasions (1592–98) to protect their country. Nevertheless, few describe how many Korean monks became little more than slaves of the state, forced to guard the borders or to participate in corvée labor projects, and subjected to the arrogant whims of the yangban elite. Also, few works describe how monastic holdings were abused, coopted, and stolen by powerful gentry and nobles. The uncomfortable truth that Korean Buddhist monks were powerless, viewed generally as slaves, and had been dominated utterly by the state during the Chosŏn period helps explain why these monks sought the protection and guidance of their Japanese Buddhist brothers in the face of the onslaught of Christianity and Western modernity. Furthermore, the Japanese model of powerful and respected Buddhist sects that enjoyed official protections guaranteed by the state and played a key role in providing imperial education was not lost to Korean Buddhists who wanted to duplicate the official protections of this type of relationship between church and state in Korea.

The meat of Empire of Dharma, chapters 2 through 5 (pp. 71–227), describes in great detail the encounters and interactions between Japanese Buddhist priests of various traditions and their Korean monastic contacts, the Japanese Buddhist missions that were established on the peninsula and their specific plans and objectives on the Korean peninsula, and various short-lived alliances between Korean monks and monasteries and Japanese priests and sects. In particular, chapter 5, “Takeda Hanshi as a Sōtōshū Missionary,” provides a sympathetic biography and analysis of this controversial figure that is, on the whole, quite compelling. Because most treatments of the attempted alliance between Yi Hoegwang’s Wŏnjong and the Sōtōshū present Takeda Hanshi as an evil figure bent on subordinating and assimilating the Korean Buddhist church into the Japanese Sōtōshū, Kim’s portrayal of him—his probable role in the infamous assassination of Queen Min (1851–1895) notwithstanding—as an essentially considerate and attentive Buddhist missionary who truly believed that the mighty and influential Sōtōshū should function as a spiritual mentor (kalyāṇamitra) to the fledgling Korean Wŏnjong (the first modern institution of Korean Buddhism headed by Yi Hoegwang), provides an important corrective to the conventional view of him simply as an imperialist. Furthermore, the evidence compiled by Kim in the climax of the...