Reconsidering the Historiography of Modern Korean Buddhism: Nationalism and Identity of the Chogye Order of Korean Buddhism

Abstract

The historiography of Korean Buddhism in the early twentieth century and colonial period has primarily been a nationalist narrative in which anti-Japanese sentiments and ‘Korean Buddhist identity through the protection of tradition’ have played a central role in the writing of the history of modern Korean Buddhism. The narrative can be outlined as follows: in response to the threat posed by Japanese Buddhism on the Korean Peninsula, a national, anti-colonial Buddhism emerged and continued under colonial circumstances. Following liberation from Japanese colonial rule, under a campaign of purifying a Buddhist order considered tainted by the colonial legacy, Korean Buddhists expelled married monks. In 1962, the Chogye Order, a successor to the long tradition of Korean Buddhism, was reestablished.1 The issues with such a narrative can be summarized through the following three points:(1) First, it considers the formative process of anti-colonial national Buddhism to be the history of modern Korean Buddhism, and the establishment of the Chogye Order as its culmination. As to the teleology of a historical interpretation that has confl ated the entire history of Korean Buddhism since the dawn of the twentieth century with the establishment of the Chogye Order, I have already argued in other publications.2 In addition, Prof. Micah Auerback has recently criticized the writing of the history of modern Korean Buddhism as falling into presentism. He argues:Another problem related to the presentist fallacy is its rigid teleology, which posits that our present is the only possible outcome of the past. The a rmation of a single ideal present is complicit with other a rmations, of a totalizing, monolithic Korean identity, of a single legitimate form of Buddhist practice.3