Impact Of Buddhism In Korea

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Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism are often called as major religions in Korea. Amongst them, Buddhism impacted Korea in various ways, such as art, architecture, people’s ethics, and political structure between sixth century, when Buddhism was introduced into Silla Kingdom and fourteenth century which is the end of Koryŏ Dynasty. This essay will demonstrate how Buddhism impacted in the progress of building political structure, and how important it was.

There was the first introduction of Buddhism in fourth century, during the Three Kingdoms period. Koguryŏ was the first of the Three Kingdoms which officially adopted Buddhism in the second year of reign of King Sosurim (372). The King had a friendly relationship with Former Ch’in in northern China. Fu Chien, the powerful ruler of the Former Ch’in, who supported Buddhism, sent a monk named Sundo with images and canon of Buddha to Koguryŏ. In this year King Sosurim accepted Buddhism . In the case of Paekche, Buddhism was introduced by a monk from Eastern Ch’in of the southern China in the first year of King Ch’imnyu’s reign (392). Not long after the arrival of Buddhism to Paekche, King Asin proclaimed that people should believe in Buddhism and seek happiness (392) . Buddhism only had a fundamental level of doctrine in Ch’in where distributed Buddhism to Koguryŏ and Paekche . Thus Buddhism was also not understood deeply in these two countries. Consequently, although Buddhism was adopted early in these two countries, Buddhism could not impact deeply Koguryŏ and Paekche on their political structures.

Although the official approval of Buddhism in Silla was the latest amongst the Three Kingdoms, it was most successfully implemented into the society. In fact the unofficial arrival of Bu...

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...hical, focused solely on accumulation of wealth and power. This resulted in the oversized Buddhist establishment which brought inordinate monastery construction which was completely unnecessary. Thus Buddhist monasteries influenced throughout the country . This decadence was one of factors of the downfall of Koryŏ.

This essay has demonstrated that the tremendous impact of Buddhism on the Silla and Koryŏ society. Silla became the most powerful Kingdom amongst The Three Kingdoms through the reform based on Buddhism and achieved the unification of Korean peninsula. Koryŏ dynasty was maintained the Hoguk Pulgyo which was the Buddhist ideology in order to protect its territory from foreign invasions. Considering these points, it can be said that there was strong connection between Buddhism and political structure during sixth to fourteenth century in Korean peninsula.

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