Eastern Learning and the Heavenly Way

Abstract

Tonghak, or Eastern Learning, founded in 1860, combined aspects of a variety of Korean religious traditions. It became best known for its prominent role in the largest peasant rebellion in Korean history in 1894, which set the stage for the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895. Although the rebellion failed, it caused immense changes in Korean society and played a part in the war that ended in Japan's victory and its eventual rise as an imperial power. It was in this context of social change and a perilous international situation that Tonghak rebuilt itself, emerging as Ch'ŏndogyo (Teaching of the Heavenly Way) in 1906. During the years before Japan's annexation of Korea in 1910, Ch'ŏndogyo continued to evolve. In spite of Korea's loss of independence, Ch'ŏndogyo would endure and play a major role in Korean nationalist movements in the Japanese colonial period. This book focuses on the internal developments in the Tonghak and Ch'ŏndogyo movements between 1895 and 1910. It explains how Tonghak survived the failed 1894 rebellion to set the foundations for Ch'ŏndogyo's important role in the Japanese colonial period. The story of Tonghak and Ch'ŏndogyo not only is an example of how new religions interact with their surrounding societies and how they consolidate and institutionalize themselves as they become more established; it also reveals the processes by which Koreans coped and engaged with the challenges of social, political, and economic change and the looming darkness that would result in the extinguishing of national independence at the hands of Japan's expanding empire.