fucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. Confucianism was a code of morality, an
ideology, and a ‘religion’. Daoism also had a strong influence upon the people.
Its naturalism and the practice of mystic discipline was a ‘way of becoming
the other being’ for the people. Buddhism displayed another possible ‘answer’;
teaching ‘the awakening and the practice of benevolence’. It, too, was a
‘religion’.
It must be noticed, however, that those phenomena were neither con-
ceptualized as nor named ‘religion’ (jongkyo). Rather, they were called ‘proper
teachings’, ‘techniques of practicing wisdom’, ‘attitude insured by orderly
behaviors’, ‘learning’, ‘principles that must be followed’, ‘laws’, and so on. In
traditional Korean no word encompassed such phenomena totally (Jang
Suk-man 1992: 32–37).
The traditional terms inevitably got pulled down by the raging wave of
modernity. The strange and new word ‘religion’ and its conceptual implications
became an epistemological apparatus for judging traditional Korean
experiences. Christianity provided a point of reference for these judgments.
According to those criteria, the traditional ‘culture of answers’ was classified
as shamanism or primitive folk belief, and even Confucianism, Daoism, and
Buddhism were regarded as non-justifiable religions (Jang S. 1992: 113–122).
Consider for a moment the history of Korean dynasties. In general, the myths
of the founding fathers of dynasties centered on heaven. Sovereignty was an
embodiment of heaven. However, since historic times, each dynasty selectively
enforced a particular ‘culture of answers’ as its political ideology. Buddhism
was the ruling ideology of the Silla dynasty (57 BCE–935 CE), and it continued
to be so during the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392 CE). The ideology of the Joseon
dynasty (1392–1910 CE), however, was Confucianism.
The Joseon dynasty developed to a remarkable extent arguments against
‘different systems of answers’. Early in the Joseon era, the precept and practice
of Buddhism was harshly criticized as an absurd teaching by Confucian
scholars. The traditional Buddhist ‘exit’ was cursed simply as foolishness
(Korea Institute 1998). In the late eighteenth century, there were serious
polemics between Confucianism and Catholicism (Keum 1987: 172–181).
However, it must be noticed that there was a considerable ‘critical cognition
and assessment of the others’ in the arguments of that period.
What I have mentioned suggests two things. The first is that Koreans have
had their own ‘experiences of seeking and finding answers’ within their
existential and communal situation as a culture, experiences that, in modern
terms, might be called ‘religion’. Perhaps it would be better, however, to call
it a ‘soteriological experience’ or ‘the culture of soteriology and its history’,
in order to differentiate it from ‘religion’.
The second thing that the preceding suggests is that there were many
arguments about soteriology among learned Koreans in the pre-modern
era (Korea Institute 1998), as much literature, public and private, proves. It176
HE GUANGHU, CHUNG CHIN-HONG, AND LEE CHANG-YICK