236 CHAPTER NINEAs with all traditional institutions, the great Korean monasteries have found
their very existence challenged by changes in modern society. One major dis-
ruption has been land reform, which has severely reduced the land holdings
that used to provide their primary source of income. As a result, the monas-
teries have had to organize lay support groups in the major cities to ensure
their financial survival. This outreach to the laity has entailed new responsibil-
ities for the senior monks, as they must make periodic teaching visits to groups
scattered throughout the country and provide lay retreat sessions on their
monastic campuses. Another change has been wrought by the new tendency
among the urban population to regard the monasteries as tourist spots. In
some cases, the impact of tourism has proven so disruptive that monasteries
have been forced to abandon their campuses to the tourists and to build unas-
suming retreats for monks and nuns even farther away in the mountains. Be-
cause the monastic alternative is still attracting candidates, however, solutions
will probably be found to these problems, so that Korea will continue to pro-
vide, perhaps in altered form, environments conducive to a life of Buddhist
practice.
VIETNAM
9.9 Two Streams ofBuddhism Converge
Vietnam as a political and cultural entity is largely a product of the modern
era. For centuries the country now known by that name was divided politi-
cally and culturally into two parts, north and south. As we have already noted
(see Section 7 .3), southern Vietnam belonged to the area of "Further India"
until the fifteenth century, and so received its Buddhism from Indian sources.
Northern Vietnam has belonged to the Chinese cultural sphere-and at times
was actually part of the Chinese empire-since the third century B.C. E. Al-
though it, too, originally received its Buddhism via Indian traders and actually
helped spread the religion to China in the third century c.E., the tide began to
turn in the sixth century. Under the T'ang dynasty, when northern Vietnam
was a part of the empire, Chinese Buddhism came to dominate the country as
Chinese governors used it as a tool for civilizing the "barbarian" natives.
When the Dinh dynasty (969-81) gained independence, Buddhism was pro-
claimed the national religion, a position it held through the Le dynasty
(1010-1225) and well into the Tran dynasty (1225-1400).
In the fifteenth century, the north annexed the Indianized Champa king-
dom, based in central Vietnam, beginning a process whereby the sinicized
culture of the north came to dominate the Indianized culture of the south.
This process, completed in the eighteenth century, was reflected in Vietnamese