BUDDHISM IN KOREA AND VIETNAM 221Hua-yen and Fa-hsiang doctrine. We have already noted how Chegwan (see
Section 8.5.1), a Korean, helped revive the T'ien-t'ai school in China during
the Five Dynasties period.
Despite these connections, however, the fact that Buddhism's roots lay
outside of China allowed it to serve as a rallying point for Korean and Viet-
namese nationalists reacting against foreign military and cultural incursions.
Temples in Korea were dedicated to the protection of the military and were
assumed to ward off attacks. During the sixth century, Korean Buddhists came
to believe that their country had been Sakyamuni's home in a previous life-
time. Thus they claimed a special connection with Buddhism; the Chinese, in
their eyes, did not transmit a new doctrine to them, but simply reminded them
of their own heritage. To emphasize the connection, members of the Silla
royal house were named after Sakyamuni's relatives, and many Korean kings
consciously followed the model of the Universal Monarch (see Section 2.2) as
a way of securing the loyalty of their subjects. In a similar pattern, the Viet-
namese dedicated Buddhist stiipas to national heroes and heroines who had
fought off foreign invaders.
Both countries differed from China in another important respect: size.
Neither was able to sustain the diversity of schools that had flourished in the
much larger Chinese context. As a result, Buddhism in both countries has had
an active tendency toward ecumenicism, with the local forms of Ch' an and
Pure Land providing the overall framework.
Korea
9.2 The Three Kingdoms Period (18 B.C.E.-688 C.E.)
The history of Korea as a distinct cultural entity began in the first century
B.C. E. as rival clans led by warrior aristocracies competed for control of the
Korean Peninsula. Eventually three clans emerged victorious, establishing the
separate kingdoms of Koguryo, Paekche, and Silla.
Each kingdom had its own unique responses to the entrance ofBuddhism,
but with certain patterns in common. Like the northern Chinese courts with
whom they had close connections, the royalty of each kingdom viewed Bud-
dhism as a cult offering supernatural protection for the nation through its con-
nections with powerful Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Each viewed Buddhism as
a potential force for internal unification and pacification as well, because it of-
fered a moral ideology that could supersede the more divisive mythologies as-
sociated with rival aristocratic clans. Kings and other members of the royal
families entered the Sangha as monks and nuns, and actively disseminated the
religion to the general populace, where it integrated with native shamanic