Monastic Education and Educational Ideology in the Late Chosŏn

This paper examines the process of establishing the system of monastic education and the use of the sammun suhak in the Late Chosŏn period. Buddhist views on praxis and study had a close relationship to the structure of the educational curriculum for monastics. I argue that the widely accepted framework of the sammun suhak for Buddhist practice bears a close relationship to the process of defining a standardized system of practice for Buddhism. Based on this, I will examine which subjects were selected and what kind of changes they underwent before the final curriculum was established. I also further analyze which Buddhist doctrines were apparent in individual subjects and their interrelationship with the process of education. Finally, I draw parallels between the establishment of a monastic education curriculum and the contemporaneous system of Confucian education.