The Life and Thought of Chinul

...church/state relations, Maitreya (the future Buddha) worship, and Sarvāstivādin/Mahāyāna scholastic investigations.²⁰ These features all became important elements in early Three Kingdoms Buddhism.

Three Kingdoms Buddhism

Buddhism is traditionally assumed to have been introduced into Korea by an official mission sent to Koguryŏ in 372 from the Former Ch’in dynasty. King Fu Chien dispatched the high priest Sundo (Chinese: Shun-tao) as his personal envoy to the Koguryŏ court of King Sosurim (r. 371–384), together with Buddhist images and scriptures.²¹ Soon afterward, in 384, the Serindian monk Maranant’a (Mālānanda, Kumāranandin)²² arrived in Paekche by ship from Eastern Chin to an elaborate reception by the royal court.²³ The favorable receptions given Maranant’a in Paekche and Sundo in Koguryŏ, however, would seem to belie the fact that these were the first Korean contacts with Buddhism. The Liang Biographies of Eminent Monks record that the renowned Eastern Chin monk Chih-tun Tao-lin (314–366)²⁴ sent a letter to a Koguryŏ monk at least one decade before Sundo’s mission.²⁵ That such communications were occurring even at that early date indicates a dialogue between Korea and China on Buddhist topics and certainly suggests more contact between the two regions than the extant evidence indicates.²⁶ At any rate, from this point on, Buddhism in Korea enjoyed remarkable success. Both the Koguryŏ and Paekche ruling houses established temples in their respective territories²⁷ and encouraged the faith among their subjects.²⁸ By 529, through the mythic efforts of Ado and the martyrdom of Ich’adon, the less-developed kingdom of early Silla, isolated on the east coast and the last of the three kingdoms to unify, had also converted.²⁹

There is such a paucity of records concerning this earliest period of Korea’s Buddhist history³⁰ that our assumptions about the nature of Three Kingdoms Buddhism must be tentative. The account of Sundo’s mission to Koguryŏ tells us that he brought Buddhist images, but it does not identify them. We do know, however, that Maitreya worship was widespread in Central Asia during this period and, clearly influenced by this fact, Fu Chien actively supported the dissemination of Maitreya images throughout his realm.³¹ The visualization of images as a meditation device, as well as a means of popularizing Buddhism among the masses, was championed by the Ch’in ruler’s spiritual advisor, Tao-an;³² hence we can assume that the images first brought to Korea were those of Maitreya. The prevalence of Maitreya piety in the early Korean tradition also tends to support this hypothesis.³³

The question of which scriptures Sundo presented to King Sosurim is more problematic. In China, the translation of Mahāyāna sūtras (scriptures) had begun as early as 179 with the first rendering of the Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā-sūtra...