The Material Culture of Buddhist Propagation: Reinstating Buddhism in Early Colonial Seoul
The restrictive measures against Buddhism under the Neo-Confucian Chosŏn dynasty resulted in the decline of Korean Buddhism at the start of the twentieth century. As the Chosŏn government started to make sweeping changes in the name of modernization, Korean Buddhist monks found an opportunity to rev...
| Published in: | Religions |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
MDPI
2021
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| In: |
Religions
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| Further subjects: | B
Pure Land practice
B propagation B Seoul B Korean Buddhist painting B Lay Buddhism B urban transformation B Colonization B modern Korean Buddhism |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | The restrictive measures against Buddhism under the Neo-Confucian Chosŏn dynasty resulted in the decline of Korean Buddhism at the start of the twentieth century. As the Chosŏn government started to make sweeping changes in the name of modernization, Korean Buddhist monks found an opportunity to revitalize their tradition through measures of reform. This paper examines one instance of attempts to bring Korean Buddhism back to the center of the country in the early twentieth century. The establishment of the Buddhist Central Propagation Space in 1920, examined thoroughly for the first time in this study, shows a meaningful yet ultimately unsuccessful attempt at modernizing Korean Buddhism in the dynamics of the colonial Buddhism. Moving beyond the nationalist critique of its founder Yi Hoegwang, who has been heavily criticized for his pro-colonialist undertakings in later historiography, I reconsider the significance of this propagation space in the history of Buddhist propagation and respatialization of Seoul during the early colonial period. My analysis of Three Gates in a Single Mind commissioned for this urban Buddhist temple in 1921 not only shows the diversity of modern Korean Buddhist paintings but also reveals a new role assigned to Buddhist icons in the changing context of Pure Land practice. I also discuss the seminal contribution of the court lady Ch’ŏn Ilch’ŏng to the founding of the propagation space, thereby restoring the voice of one important laywoman in the modernization of Korean Buddhism. |
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| ISSN: | 2077-1444 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religions
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.3390/rel12050352 |