Silla Monks’ Interpretations of the Precept Against Taking of Life

Abstract

One of the defining characteristics of Korean Buddhism is the concept of “Buddhism as protector of the state.” From the Three Kingdoms period (ca. 300–935) to the Chosŏn period (1392–1910), Korean monks often played major political and military roles when the country was in crisis. This is considered to have been inevitable considering that Korean Buddhism became accepted and established on the Korean Peninsula under the protection of state power.<BR> However, according to two texts on Buddhist precepts important to Korean Buddhism, i.e. the Four-part Vinaya and the Brahmā’s Net Sūtra, the killing of living creatures and the possession of weapons are both strictly prohibited. Any action that would cause the death of a living creature is also strictly banned, and murder is considered the gravest crime of all the precepts. Therefore, if monks or nuns commit murder, it will be a basis for which they will be expelled from the saṃgha. Nevertheless, Korean monks have sometimes actively intervened in times of national crisis as citizens of the state.<BR> What position did Korean monks take in situations where killing was considered inevitable, but such actions were prohibited by Buddhist precepts? This paper examines this question by focusing on the case of Silla monks at a time when the Silla state was in a dire situation during its wars to unite the Three Kingdoms. In effect, in their exegetical writings, Silla monks chose to expand the scope of “acceptable” actions by reinterpreting the precepts forbidding the taking of life and related issues.