Makers of Modern Korean Buddhism

Sŏn Master Man’gong and Cogitations of a Colonized Religion

7 Sŏn Master Man’gong and Cogitations of a Colonized Religion Mu Soeng This essay seeks to examine the life of Buddhist monk, Man’gong (1872–1946), during the Japanese occupation of Korea (1910–1945), and his prominent role in the struggle against the attempted colonization of Korean Buddhism. This role becomes quite significant when we consider that the occupying Japanese authorities had made a concerted effort to restructure the basic institutions of Korean Buddhism and remake them in the image of Japanese temples run by married clergy. The age-old Buddhist tradition of Korea, embedded largely in the ascetic mountain monk paradigm, was in danger of losing its basic identity along with the rest of the institutions of Korean society. Any resistance to the brutal occupation was not without a great degree of personal danger to the resisters. Man’gong, as the leader of a handful of Buddhist monks to offer such resistance, thus became, in turn, one of the iconic figures of revived Buddhism after the Japanese occupation ended in 1945. Much of Man’gong’s fame also derives from the fact that he was very active in support of nuns, who had traditionally been shunned by the Korean Buddhist establishment. His role is thus not only personal and heroic, but also historical within the context of modern Korean Buddhism. One has to appreciate that the moniker, “Hermit Kingdom,” was actually based on Korea’s self-imposed isolation from the rest of the world from early 1600s to 1850s. This period, which marks the second half of Korea’s Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910), is signified by a neo-Confucian ascendancy that sought to bring an end to Buddhism’s long-held place in Korean society. 157 SP_PAR_Ch07_157-170.indd 157 SP_PAR_Ch07_157-170.indd 157 1/8/10 2:39:26 PM 1/8/10 2:39:26 PM 158 Makers of Modern Korean Buddhism Korean Buddhism during the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries Although in China Buddhism never became a state religion—except for few isolated regional rulers—it permeated and inserted itself into the life of the peasantry to the extent that it could not be rooted out by any edict of the imperial court. The Confucian mandarins at the court could, and did, regulate the conduct of urban temples, especially in regional centers, but China is a huge country with an overwhelming farming population. The Chinese, moreover, had a long history of harmonizing and synthesizing the teachings of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. It paid political dividends for Chinese elite to tolerate Buddhism at the peasantry level while collaborating with urban temples to make sure that they were never a political threat. After the great persecutions of 845–47, there is a general absence of any extended persecution of Buddhism in China as it got reshaped as a folk religion without any overt power base.1 Although the Song dynasty in China (960–1279) saw the emergence of neo-Confucianism, it was also a period of “Three Learnings” where all three religions could dialogue with and tolerate each other. This unfortunately did not happen in Korea, which had a long history of Buddhism being the state religion under the unified Silla period (668–935) and the succeeding Koryo dynasty (936–1392). Korea is a small country, much of it too rugged for habitation. For whatever historical and psychological reasons, Confucian elite in Korea did not engender the same degree of tolerance for either Buddhism or Daoism as did their counterparts in China. The result was a rigid, intolerant Confucian orthodoxy in power in the wake of Japanese invasions in 1592 and 1598.2 During this period (from 1600s on) the policies of neglect and repression of Buddhism that had been well-established prior to Japanese invasions were resumed. Only a handful of sūtra monks and temples remained in cities (to perform Buddhist ceremonies for rites of passage when no comparable Confucian ceremonies were available). Zen (Sŏn) monks retreated to their small practice communities in the mountains and countryside. A ban was imposed in 1623 that prohibited non-authorized monks from entering the city gates of Seoul, the capital, except in the case of either parent’s death. “Buddhist temples seem to have been offered some mild form of protection during the reign of king Chŏngjo (r. 1777–1800). After that it was a time once again of benign neglect.”3 It is not without irony that the foundations for a revival...