Introduction

During the earliest period of its history, Korea was influenced most by the culture of the semi-nomadic tribes of Central and North Asia, with whom it shared racial and cultural affinities.¹⁰ These contacts exerted a much stronger influence initially over Korean culture and society than did those with the Han race to the west. Indeed, Korean scholars remain fascinated with the idea that Buddhism in Korea traces from these early contacts with the Central Asian regions which had spawned Chinese Buddhism, if not from direct contacts with India itself.¹¹ By the time of the Warring States period (403–221 B.C.), when refugees from the northern Chinese states of Yen, Ch'i, and Chao immigrated into the state of Ancient Chosŏn during the Han unification wars, Chinese influence became all-pervasive.¹² With the advent of the Three Kingdoms came steadily increasing diplomatic and cultural exchanges with the Chinese dynasties of the mainland. Indeed, from the time of the Three Kingdoms, China's influence was so strong as to obscure entirely that coming from the Central Asian steppes.

Koguryŏ, the first tribal league to mature into a full-fledged kingdom, was continually challenged by neighboring tribes on both its northern and southern borders. Incursions from other Tungusic tribes in northwestern Manchuria and from the Paekche kingdom to the southwest ravaged Koguryŏ political and economic fortunes. In 342, the Hsien-pei¹³ of the Former Yen state (349–370)¹⁴, who had established themselves in the northeast of China, invaded Koguryŏ, took the capital, captured the queen and queen mother, and took fifty thousand men and women as slaves before withdrawing.¹⁵ This northern threat was removed only in 370 when Yen was conquered by Fu Chien (ruled 357–384), the third ruler of the Former Ch'in dynasty (351–394), a monarchy founded by the proto-Tibetan Ti people.¹⁶ Ch'in's conquest of all northern China, as well as the Kansu corridor and the Indo-European petty kingdoms of the Tarim River Basin,¹⁷ brought it control of the lucrative silk trade routes and put northern China in direct contact with Central Asian Buddhism.

Former Ch'in hegemony over eastern Turkestan allowed foreign influences to grow freely in northern China. The political, cultural, religious, and commercial fluidity and tolerance of Turkestan allowed Indian, Iranian, Hellenistic, and Chinese cultures to interact and enrich one another.¹⁸ Hence the uniquely cosmopolitan atmosphere of the northern Chinese frontier regions provided a fertile ground in which a truly Sinified (made Chinese) form of Buddhism could develop.

The victory of Fu Chien over the Yen encroachers brought close ties between him and his Koguryŏ contemporary, King Sosurim (ruled 371–383). Through these contacts, Korea was opened to the cultural influences then current in the Ch'in state, including the northern Chinese variety of Buddhism.¹⁹ Although our information on this period is scanty, we do know that the Buddhism was characterized by thaumaturgic elements, close...