scholarly journals Celibacy or Marriage? Dilemmas for Buddhist Monks in Korea

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2021/1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Beatrix Mecsi
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Social Darwinism ◽  
Viable Alternative ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Korean Buddhism ◽  
Complex Picture ◽  
Japanese Colonial

Following the Confucian period of the Chosŏn era, which overshadowed Buddhists and confined them to the margins of society, at the beginning of Japanese colonial rule the possibility of monastic marriage typical of Japanese practice emerged as a viable alternative for Korean Buddhists in the early twentieth century. While the repressive memory of Japanese colonial heritage often appears in the relevant literature about clerical marriage today as the main reason for Korean Buddhists to get married, an analysis of contemporary documents presents us with a much more complex picture. Most notably among Korean intellectuals, one of the most significant personalities of the era, Manhae Han Young’un’s (1879−1944) systematically urged the reform of Korean Buddhism, Chosŏn Pulgyo yusinnon 朝鮮 佛 敎 維新 論 (Treatise on the Restoration of Korean Buddhism). In connection with the presentation and circumstances of the thirteenth point formulated to allow polemics and the practice of priestly marriage, we can see that his Confucian education, personality, and life play as important a part in his reasoning as the ideologies of the era, social Darwinism and modernism, and democracy. But primary sources revealing the daily lives and circumstances of the monks also show that thewillingness to marry was also greatly influenced by the new inheritance rules introduced in the Japanese colonial system.

The Encounter of Buddhism and Law in Early Twentieth-Century Korea

2009 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. Nathan
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Korean Buddhism ◽  
Monastic Community ◽  
Japanese Colonial ◽  
The Relationship

Law is central to an understanding of the development of modern Korean Buddhism. New legal and regulatory structures that were introduced during the first two decades of the twentieth century in Korea significantly impacted the course of modern Korean Buddhist history. The relationship between modern secular laws and Buddhist organizations during this period, however, was forged chiefly in the context of increasing Japanese political control over Korea, especially after the start of direct colonial rule following annexation in 1910. Therefore, the critical legal issues involved in the historical development of early modern Korean Buddhism have typically been subsidiary to the analyses of Japanese colonial policies toward the monastic community. The precise contours of the relationship between Buddhism and law in the modern period remain largely unexplored and thus indistinct because the focus in previous studies has been placed on the confrontation between thesanghaand the colonial state.

Contemporary Korean Buddhist Traditions

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. Nathan
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Daily Routines ◽  
Active Involvement ◽  
The Past ◽  
Korean Buddhism ◽  
Japanese Colonial ◽  
Lay Buddhists ◽  
Key Events

This chapter looks closely at key events and noticeable patterns of contemporary Korean Buddhist traditions over the past three decades. After a brief historical background on Korean Buddhism prior to the twentieth century, it turns to early twentieth-century changes under Japanese colonial rule and the postcolonial period in South Korea that set the stage for a series of overlapping trends beginning in the 1980s. These show how the contemporary period has produced more opportunities for lay Buddhists to practice and worship in Korea, to learn and study, to volunteer their time for various causes and help spread the Dharma, and even to experience temporarily the daily routines and forms of practice that were once reserved for monastics. The reorientation of the tradition toward greater social outreach and active involvement in social and political affairs, together with a sharp increase in Buddhist orders and organizations, is also discussed.

Hanbang Healing for the World: The Eastern Medicine Renaissance in 1930s Japan-ruled Korea

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Flowers
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Western Medicine ◽  
Unusual Case ◽  
Effective Resistance ◽  
Colonial Medicine ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Medical Practices ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Japanese Colonial

Abstract The story of the 1930s Eastern Medicine Renaissance in Korea is an unusual case in the history of colonial medicine. Responding to Japanese colonial rule that began in the first decade of the twentieth century, a few thousand Korean physicians of Eastern medicine complied with the new registration requirements, but they turned that compliance into effective resistance. By organising conferences, publishing journals and books, and through the new medium of advertising, the physicians refuted Japanese official arguments of the superiority of Western medicine. The Koreans flipped on its head the Japanese rhetorical argument of Koreans and Japanese as one body (with the Japanese as ‘the head’) and persuaded the Japanese that they could learn from Korean medical practices. Flipping the Japanese trope of Korean weakness upside down, Koreans thereby used their version of Eastern medicine to demonstrate Korean strength.

Islam and Colonial Rule in Lagos

1995 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-80
Author(s):  
Olakunle A. Lawal
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Tropical Africa ◽  
Southwestern Nigeria ◽  
Urban Settlement ◽  
Islam And Politics ◽  
British Rule ◽  
History Of ◽  
Process Of Urbanization

IntroductionThis essay provides an explanation of the dynamics of the interactionbetween Islam and politics by placing emphasis on the role played byMuslims in the collision of traditionalism and British rule as colonialismtook root in Lagos. The focus is on the development of a political schismwithin the nascent Muslim community of metropolitan Lagos at the startof the twentieth century up until the end of the 1940s. It highlights therole of Islam in an emerging urban settlement experiencing rapid transformationfrom a purely rural and traditional center into a colonial urbancenter. The essay is located within the broader issues of urban change andtransition in twentieth-century tropical Africa. Three major developments(viz: the central mosque crisis, the Eleko affair, and the Oluwa land case)are used as the vehicles through which the objectives of the essay areachieved.The introduction of Islam into Lagos has been studied by T. G. O.Gbadamosi as part of the history of Islam in southwestern Nigeria. Thisepic study does not pay specific attention to Lagos, devoted as it is to thegrowth of Islam in a far-flung territory like the whole of modem southwesternNigeria. His contribution to a collection of essays on the historyof Lagos curiously leaves out Islam’s phenomenal impact on Lagosianpolitics during the first half of the twentieth century. In an attempt to fillthis gap, Hakeem Danmole’s essay also stops short of appreciating the fundamentallink between the process of urbanization, symbolized in this caseby colonial rule, and the vanguard role played by Muslims in the inevitableclash of tradition and colonial rule in Lagos between 1900 and 1950.

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