If a world religion claims universal or transnational values in its doctrine, then the devout practitioners of that religion will less likely be bound by our earthly boundaries of the nation. Such a commonsensical hypothesis, however, has not been fully appreciated in previous, especially Korean-language scholarship on Korean Buddhism, where a nationalist narrative has dominated, leading to the assessment of historical figures and events according to their contributions to the Korean nation, rather than to religion. Thus, Korean Buddhist leaders who maintained close relations with Japanese Buddhists, even when their nation was being encroached by the Japanese empire, have been understood only as traitors who betrayed their nation.
In a word, Hwansoo Kim challenges such nationalist scholarship that promotes an understanding of Korean Buddhist history based on a naïve assumption that national identity always holds primacy over religious identity. In contrast, he sheds new light on the religious and personal aspirations of Korean Buddhist leaders that drove them to prioritize their religious concerns over their national interests and thus strategically chose to seek alliances or collaborate with the Japanese Buddhists as well as the colonial authority. In so doing, Kim provides a far more complex interrelational and transnational history of Korean and Japanese Buddhism from the late nineteenth century to mid-1912, which is not a simple story of religious takeover by the Japanese but a multi-plotted drama of many individuals who had different visions and interests and yet found common ground as Buddhists.
The book consists of seven chapters. The first chapter revisits the backgrounds of late Chosŏn and Meiji Buddhisms in order to highlight the different social status of Buddhism in the two societies. The Buddhist subjugation by Confucian rule during the Chosŏn period is emphasized and then contrasted with the more vibrant history of Japanese Buddhism that received state sponsorship during the Edo period and developed as a modern institution in the early Meiji era. This contrasting history provides an important context for the subsequent Japanese-Korean Buddhist alliance that pursued the revitalization of Korean Buddhism as their common interest. The second chapter outlines the Japanese Buddhist missionary efforts in Korea with a focus on three Japanese priests, Okumura Enshin, Katō Bunkyō, and Shaku Unshō, and illustrates the complexity of their encounters with their Korean counterparts who came from totally different historical and social contexts, while sharing a Buddhist heritage and identity. The analysis of Japanese-Korean Buddhist interrelations is followed up with more detail in the third chapter, which looks into the missionary efforts by other Buddhist institutions (Higashi Honganji, Nishi Honganji, Nichirenshū, and Jōdoshū), all of which were successful in building alliances with Korean Buddhists, and Kim reveals the many different motives behind these efforts. The fourth chapter shifts its focus to the Japanese colonial government and shows how the Japanese state authority tried to regulate the growing connections between Japanese and Korean Buddhism and how the Buddhists on both sides responded to state intervention. The fifth chapter pays special attention to Takeda Hanshi, a Sōtōshū monk, who pursued the alliance between Sōtōshū and a Korean counterpart, the Wŏnjong, highlighting his religious and sectarian visions behind the scheme. The following chapter further details the sociopolitical and religious contexts that led Takeda to pursue the Sōtō-Wŏnjong alliance, while also revealing the Korean side of the story by tracing the actions of Yi Hoegwang, the Wŏnjong's head, and Kim Yŏnggi, Yi's right-hand man, who has been ignored in previous scholarship, but had played a crucial role in mediating the alliance between the two sects. The seventh chapter carefully analyzes Takeda's important manuscript, Treatise on the six truths for the Wŏngjong (Enshū rokutai ron), which Kim interprets as convincing evidence that Takeda's major motive for the Sōtō-Wŏnjong was not a political takeover of Korean Buddhism but the religious revitalization of it. Yet, the attempted alliance ended up in failure when the Government-General issued the Temple Ordinance in 1911, which placed Korean Buddhism under direct state jurisdiction.
These chapters combined provide a new picture in which “Korean and Japanese Buddhism were able to exert their own interests, visions, and strategies” (p. 16) despite growing Japanese colonialism. Japanese Buddhists were not only state agents who promoted Japanese national interests but religious propagandists who prioritized the promotion of their sectarian interests in Korea, while Koreans Buddhists were not just passive victims of Japanese imperialism but astute religious activists who tactically moved to make use of emerging Japanese colonial power to their own personal, institutional, and religious advantage.
This account of Korean Buddhists' vibrant responses to and active engagements with Japanese colonial power in collaboration with Japanese Buddhists is strikingly new and completely overturns the conventional picture of Korean Buddhism subjugated by the iron hand of Japanese rule. In that sense, Kim is highly successful in achieving his proposed ambition to “provide a thorough revision and comprehensive understanding of the history of the relationship between Korean and Japanese Buddhism” (p. 12).
Yet, there are a few reservations to be noted. First, there is a clear imbalance with the amount of Japanese and Korean primary sources quoted in the making of this revisionist history. This is unavoidable given the paucity of available Korean sources, but it cannot silence the resilient criticism from the nationalist camp that Kim's new history is written through a Japanese lens. This material limitation also led Kim to rely on accounts by the leading Korean monks, with few voices drawn from lay Buddhists; thus, one must wonder whether there were any divergent opinions between the priesthood and the laity. Lastly, Kim's use of the term “religious” is a little ambiguous, especially when he uses it to explain the Korean Buddhist motive in seeking alliances with the Japanese. It seems that the substance of this “religious” motive relates more to the Korean monks' material desire to protect their temple property and their positions in the institution rather than to their faith-based aspirations or commitment to advance Buddhist practice or doctrinal causes, such as universal peace or salvation. In any case, it would be desirable if he could clarify in what sense and to what extent the Korean Buddhists were “religious” in their actions.
That said, Kim's ambitious efforts to provide a new history of Korean Buddhism are truly inspiring and represent an academic breakthrough in the field of Korean history. This seminal work is also suggestive to many scholars in different fields who take an interest in the question of state and religion and the specific colonial impact on the formation of the relations between the two.
