Cross-national Buddhism and Identity Construction in Ch’oe Ch’iwŏn’s “Four Mountains Stele”

Abstract

This paper aims to evaluate how Chan Buddhism played a part in Buddhist discourses reflecting an increased sense of legitimacy in ninth-century East Asia. It may not surprise us that the sinicisation of Buddhism implies a process of identity construction to place China in the centre. Culture and religion joined together in this process, first in China and then in Korea. However, the location of centrality or marginality was not fixed in Buddhist ontology. Rather, innovative Buddhist intellects such as Ch’oe Ch’iwŏn (b. 857 A.D.) ventured to create a reversal of centre and margin. In Ch’oe Ch’iwŏn’s inscriptions for four Korean Sŏn schools (the total of nine schools are also known as nine mountains), an attempt to supersede China through Chan Buddhism is conspicuous. It is particularly interesting to note that, in the context of the cross-border transmission of Buddhism, the mobility of “Chan patriarchs” was essential in maintaining the legitimacy and continuity. This characteristic of the mobility of Chan patriarchs is seen in the Korean masters depicted by Ch’oe Ch’iwŏn’s, namely Chingam, Ranghye and Chijŭng.