Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pjpqr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-06T19:35:20.155Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

14 - Buddhism and Law in Korean History

From Parallel Transmission to Institutional Divergence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2014

Rebecca Redwood French
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Buffalo
Mark A. Nathan
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Buffalo
Get access

Summary

Introduction

This chapter provides a brief overview of the relationship between Buddhism and law in Korea from transmission in the fourth century CE through the change of dynasties at the turn of the fourteenth century. Given the wide scope of time and the dearth of previous scholarship on this subject, this chapter can do little more than sketch the broad contours of the multifarious ways that Buddhist ideas, texts, institutions, and individuals intersected and interacted with secular law in Korean history. It begins with a consideration of the initial patterns in the transmission of Buddhism and written law to Korea, which roughly coincided, and then examines different aspects of their interconnections as the relationship developed over time. Although Buddhism and law were closely intertwined through much of this period, distinctions were gradually drawn between them leading to greater divergences and the increasing subordination of the former to the latter. Political changes in the late fourteenth century produced an onslaught of laws and legal measures designed to strip the monastic community of much of its property, rights, prestige, and power. The evidence suggests, however, that from a Buddhism and law perspective, the legal tools needed to suppress and marginalize monastic institutions had already been put in place much earlier. In other words, the radical reorientation in saṅgha-state relations at this time did not alter the fundamental structure of the relationship between Buddhism and law, although it did substantially change its character. This suggests that, while the relationship of Buddhism to law was closely related to the relationship of Buddhism to the state, the two were neither identical nor interchangeable.

Type
Chapter
Information
Buddhism and Law
An Introduction
, pp. 255 - 272
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ki-baik, Lee, A New History of Korea, Wagner, Edward W. (trans.), with Shultz, Edward J. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 38Google Scholar
Ki-ung, Chŏng, “Samguk sidae Pulgyo ka pŏmnyul munhwa e mich’in yŏnghyang” (Buddhist influence on legal culture in the Three Kingdoms period), Pŏpsahak yŏn’gu 19 (1998), 139Google Scholar
Wallacker, Benjamin E., “Chang Fei’s Preface to the Chin Code of Law,” T’oung Pao, 72.4/5 (1986), 229–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Head, John H. and Wang, Yanping, Law Codes in Dynastic China: A Synopsis of Chinese Legal History in the Thirty Centuries from Zhou to Qing (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2005), 110Google Scholar
Best, Jonathan W., “Diplomatic and Cultural Contacts Between Paekche and China,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 42.2 (1982), 453Google Scholar
Best, Jonathan W., A History of the Early Korean Kingdom of Paekche (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, Harvard University Press, 2006), 134Google Scholar
Liu, Yongping, Origins of Chinese Law: Penal and Administrative Law in its Early Development (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998)Google Scholar
Bodde, Derk and Morris, Clarence, Law in Imperial China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967), 29CrossRefGoogle Scholar
For the story of Ich’adon in the Samguk yusa (SGYS), see T2039.49.987b3–c16 and also Iryŏn, Tae-Hung Ha and Graftan K. Mintz, Samguk yusa: Legends and History of the Three Kingdoms of Ancient Korea (Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 1972), 187–89. For the Haedong kosŭng chŏn (HKC) version, see T2065.50.1018c21–1019a25; Kakhun and Peter H. Lee (trans.), Lives of Eminent Korean Monks (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), 58–61
Johnson, Wallace S. (trans.), The T’ang Code, 2 vols. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), 2:419
MacCormack, Geoffrey, “The Transmission of Penal Law (lü) from the Han to the T’ang: A Contribution to the Study of the Early History of Codification in China,” Revue Internationale des Droits de L’Antiquité (2004), 76–77Google Scholar
Kyung-Soo, Suh and Chol-Choon, Kim, “Korean Buddhism: A Historical Perspective,” in Shin-yong, Chun (ed.), Buddhist Culture in Korea (Seoul: Si-sa-yong-o-sa, 1982), 121Google Scholar
Shaw, William, “The Neo-Confucian Revolution of Values in Early Yi Korea: Its Implications for Korean Legal Thought,” in McKnight, Brian E. (ed.), Law and the State in Traditional East Asia (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1987)Google Scholar
McBride, Richard D., “Silla Buddhism and the Hwarang,” Korean Studies, 34 (2010), 86–87Google Scholar
Mohan, Pankaj N., “Wŏn’gwang and Chajang in the Formation of Early Silla Buddhism,” in Buswell, Jr. Robert E. (ed.), Religions of Korea in Practice (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), 52Google Scholar
Vermeersch, Sem, The Power of the Buddhas: The Politics of Buddhism During the Koryŏ Dynasty (918–1392) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, Harvard University Press, 2008), 118CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ki-yong, Rhi, “Silla Buddhism: Its Special Features,” in Lancaster, Lewis R. and Yu, C.S. (eds.), Introduction of Buddhism to Korea: New Cultural Patterns (Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1989), 190Google Scholar
Lee, Peter H. and Theodore de Bary, William (eds.), Sourcebook of Korean Tradition, Volume One: From Early Times through the Sixteenth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 154
Duncan, John B., The Origins of the Chosŏn Dynasty (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2000), 206–07Google Scholar
Park, Pori, Trial and Error in Modernist Reforms: Korean Buddhism under Colonial Rule (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 2009), 15Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×