A Handbook of Korean Zen Practice. A Mirror on the Sŏn School of Buddhism (Sŏn’ga kwigam) by John Jorgensen (review)

The Korean Classics Library forms part of the 100 Korean Classics Program, an ambitious plan to translate the most important and representative works of Korean writing culture into English. Launched in 2007 by the Academy of Korean Studies, the fruits of this project are slowly starting to make their mark in the academic world. This translation is a good example of the potential merits of this program. Although the Sŏn’ga kwigam, written by the famous mid-Chosŏn monk Hyujŏng (1520–1604), has already been translated a few times into English, the new translation by John Jorgensen eclipses them and sets a standard to follow.

There are now a number of solid scholarly translations into English available of works from the Silla and Koryŏ periods, but this is the first landmark translation of a Buddhist work from the Chosŏn period. Although there is growing interest in and appreciation of the relative vitality of Buddhism during the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910), decades of neglect means that there is still a lot of catching up to do. Notably in the area of Chosŏn Buddhist thought, the long-standing assumption that it was but a pale imitation of what preceded it is still prevalent. From that perspective, it might seem that this work is not a good choice to dispel this notion, since it has always been regarded as a “handbook,” a condensation of the essential teachings on Sŏn meant to guide and inspire students; however, as will be discussed below, it is certainly not a “simple” manual to be followed.

The work itself is very short. In its Cassical Chinese (Hanmun) version, which is the most widely used in Korea, it consists of about 150 short excerpts or paraphrases of masters of the Chan/Sŏn tradition, followed by Hyujŏng’s brief comments. In the Han’guk Pulgyo chŏnsŏ edition of the text, for example, it occupies only about twelve pages. Yet as Jorgensen points out, the oldest edition of the text is actually one composed in vernacular Korean using the Han’gŭl alphabet (known as ŏnmun at the time, the term used by Jorgensen). It was published in 1569, while the first known Hanmun edition dates to 1579. Scholars agree that Hyujŏng must have composed the text in Hanmun by 1564, and that a disciple translated it into the vernacular shortly after. The most obvious reason for publishing the text in Korean first is that the level of learning among monks had dropped so precipitously that they needed a colloquial explanation. Yet Jorgensen also points out that the Zen koine differs from standard classical Chinese in that it borrowed a lot of colloquial Chinese expressions. It may have been to explicate this Zen jargon that the text had to be translated into Korean (p. 61).

The translator’s meticulous comparison of the Korean and Hanmun texts also reveals that the Korean text is actually the most complete edition. Thus, as the base text for this translation Jorgensen has used the 1569 vernacular edition, which he has compared systematically with the Hanmun editions. This is a somewhat unusual approach, but it works to good effect. It is unusual because the middle Korean in which the text is composed is very different from modern Korean. In Korean academia, vernacular texts, including Buddhist ones, have traditionally been the domain of linguists, whereas religious scholars usually rely on Hanmun texts. The author has tried to break this mold, but given the numerous difficulties of translating from middle Korean, he has relied for his interpretation on the translation of this vernacular edition by Pak Chaeyang and Pae Kyubŏm, both linguists or literary scholars rather than Buddhist scholars. However, he has also carefully checked with the...