Joseon Suppression of Buddhism
King Sejong reduced the Buddhist orders of Korea to two schools and thirty-six temples in 1424. Buddhism had been the state religion of the previous Goryeo dynasty for four and a half centuries, and its monasteries had accumulated enormous tax-exempt estates, private armies, and a clergy that constituted a substantial part of the male population — all of which the Joseon dynasty regarded as a fiscal and political problem rather than a spiritual one. The founder Yi Seong-gye had taken the throne in 1392 with the support of Neo-Confucian scholar-officials who held that Buddhism was a foreign superstition that removed men from their families and land from the tax rolls. Suppression proceeded by stages under his successors. Temple lands and slaves were confiscated, the number of recognised orders cut from eleven to seven and then to two, ordinations restricted, and monks barred from entering the capital. Sejong's decree of 1424 is the point at which the institutional structure was effectively dismantled, and it is the paradox of a reign otherwise remembered for its generosity — the same king who commissioned the Korean alphabet in 1443 so that ordinary people could write, and who sponsored rain gauges, water clocks and an agricultural manual in the vernacular. He turned to Buddhism privately in his last years and had a hall built in the palace. Confucian orthodoxy governed Korean society for five centuries afterwards, and Buddhism survived in the mountains. Hangul, the alphabet he made, is now the point of national pride his suppression of the temples is not. Around a quarter of South Koreans identify as Buddhist today, and the mountain temples that survived the suppression are its principal heritage sites.
- Year: 1424 CE
- Category: Religious
