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March 02, 2009
A Shadow Cast over a Thousand Rivers: Buddhism and the Search for Values during the late Goryeo Dynasty
A lecture by Juhn Y. Ahn
Department and Center for the Study of Religion; University of Toronto
Suite 1644, School of Social Work Building, 1080 S. University
On the eve of the founding of the Joseon dynasty, a new legislation that required the official class to rebuild their identities around the practice of ancestor worship at the ancestral hall (sadang) was enacted. A variety of different sociopolitical factors contributed to the drafting of this new legislation but one in particular requires our special attention. Despite the strong tendency to read this new piece of legislation as an extension of the reformist, Neo-Confucian, and anti-Buddhist agenda of the so-called “new scholar officials” (sinheung sadaebu), this talk will attempt to show that the significance of this new piece of legislation cannot be fully appreciated unless Buddhism’s traditional role as the locus of ancestral worship and as the independent financial base of the central aristocratic bureaucrats during the late Goryeo dynasty is given due consideration. Also worth considering, as this talk will suggest, is the possible connection between the growth and decline of grave temples (fensi) in Song dynasty China and the spread of Buddhist memorial chapels (weondang) during the Goryeo.
Posted by kanepark at March 2, 2009 08:05 AM