King Taejo's Buddhist View and Statecraft in Tenth-Century Korea

Abstract

This paper examines King Taejo’s Buddhist view and his statecraft in tenth-century Korea based on his own words, writings, and activities related to Buddhism. To that end, this research investigates the nature of Buddhism during the king’s reign, his Buddhist activities, and the relationship between his politics and Buddhism. I came to a conclusions that: Buddhism during King Taejo’s reign was not the state religion but a dominant religion; the king possibly understood Buddhism through the lens of Confucianism and a multidimensional cosmology; the king’s prime concern was not with the early teachings of the Buddha, including the Four Noble Truths, but with such skill-in-means as the theory of karmic retribution and Buddhist events, which contained the construction of temples and the performance of Buddhist rituals; and the king used Buddhism while coining Buddhist ethics for his secular purposes, including royal longevity, and putting Buddhist circles under his control; and the Buddhist circles ingratiated themselves with the king’s Buddhist policy in exchange for their sustenance, which tradition continued down to the end of the Goryeo dynasty.