The Many Religions of Korea
"I think it will be better to take the word in its broadest sense, and consider religion to include every relation which men hold, or fancy that they hold, to…
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
"Religion and Superstition" from The Passing of Korea by Homer Hulbert, 1906.
Before beginning the discussion of Korea's religions we must define the term. This will seem strange to a Western reader, who knows well enough what a religion is; but with these Eastern people it is extremely difficult to tell where religion leaves off and mere superstition begins. I think it will be better to take the word in its broadest sense, and consider religion to include every relation which men hold, or fancy that they hold, to superhuman, infra-human or, more broadly still, extra-human phenomena. And we must even supplement this by saying that in the category of extra-human we include the spirits of human beings that have died.
Thus defined, we shall see that the religions of Korea form a very intricate study. In no department of Korean life is the antiquity of their civilisation so clearly demonstrated as in the mosaic of religious beliefs that are held, not only by different individuals but by any single individual.
We have no choice but to deal with these separately, but the reader must ever bear in mind that in every Korean mind there is a jumble of the whole; that there is no antagonism between the different cults, however they may logically refute each other, but that they have all been shaken down together through the centuries until they form a sort of religious composite, from which each man selects his favourite ingredients without ever ignoring the rest. Nor need any man hold exclusively to any one phase of this composite religion. In one frame of mind he may lean toward the Buddhistic element and at another time he may revert to his ancestral fetichism. As a general thing, we may say that the all-round Korean will be a Confucianist when in society, a Buddhist when he philosophises and a spirit-worshipper when he is in trouble.
Now, if you want to know what a man's religion is, you must watch him when he is in trouble. Then his genuine religion will come out, if he has any. It is for this reason that I conclude that the underlying religion of the Korean, the foundation upon which all else is mere superstructure, is his original spirit-worship. In this term are included animism, shamanism, fetichism and nature-worship generally.
Buddhism was introduced into Korea in the early centuries of our era, and Confucianism followed soon after. The former was too mystical to appeal to the people in its more philosophic aspects, and, as it came in as a fashionable state religion, its spectacular character was its chief recommendation. Confucianism, on the other hand, was too cold and materialistic to appeal to the emotional side of his nature, and so became simply a political system, the moral elements of which never found any considerable following among the masses. But both these systems eventually blended with the original spirit-worship in such a way as to form a composite religion.
Strange to say, the purest religious notion which the Korean to-day possesses is the belief in Hananim, a being entirely unconnected with either of the imported cults and as far removed from the crude nature- worship. This word Hananim is compounded of the words "heaven" (sky) and "master," and is the pure Korean counterpart of the Chinese word "Lord of Heaven."
The Koreans all consider this being to be the Supreme Ruler of the universe. He is entirely separated from and outside the circle of the various spirits and demons that infest all nature. Considered from this standpoint, the Koreans are strictly monotheists, and the attributes and powers ascribed to this being are in such consonance with those of Jehovah that the foreign missionaries (Protestant) have almost universally accepted the term for use in teaching Christianity.
The Roman Catholics have adopted the term Chun-ju, a pure Chinese word of the same significance, but open to the same objection, namely, that it was used long before Christianity came, and may therefore be called the name of a heathen god. But while in China it has been found that idols exist bearing the name Chun-ju, the Koreans have never attempted to make any physical representation of Hananim. He has never been worshipped by the use of any idolatrous rites, and the concept of him in the Korean mind is, so far as it goes, in no way derogatory to the revealed character of God himself.
It is a moot point whether the Koreans consider the physical heavens to be the person of this god. Some of the more ignorant ones will deny that he is invisible, and point to the heavens in proof of their statement; but they attribute to him a fatherly care of mankind in sending sunlight and shower, and a retributive power in striking the wicked with lightning or other disaster. The Temple of Heaven to which the Emperor repairs to pray in times of famine, pestilence or other great calamity is a purely Chinese innovation, and can be said to have only such connection with the Korean Hananim as grows out of a common but independent concept of Divinity in the two countries.
As a rule, the people do not worship Hananim. He is appealed to by the Emperor only, as we have just said, and this in itself would seem to indicate that the Koreans received the idea of this being from China. One would be rash to dogmatise here, but it is our conviction that it was indigenous to Korea as well as to China.
The foregoing coincides with the Confucian element in Korean religion, so far as Confucianism postulates a personal Supreme Being, but on the Buddhist side there are countless gods, the one commonest to the Korean being Ok-wang Sang-je, or Jade King Supreme Ruler. The various "uses" of the Buddhist deities will appear in connection with our remarks on fortune-telling.
We must turn now to what we may call the practical religion of the Koreans, the belief in a countless number of spirits which definitely affect the every-day life of the individual. The higher deities are reserved for special festivals, but these others are daily in evidence and the ordinary Korean has them ever in mind. Here it is easy to exaggerate, for there are thousands, of Koreans who pay no attention whatever to any kind of a deity or power.
They are morally averse to any restriction upon their own passions, and they are too intelligent to believe that their welfare is dependent upon the propitiation of any spirits,whether such exist or not. They may acknowledge the fact, but will not abide by the logical inference. There are very many Koreans, however, who not only believe in the existence of such spirits, but are anxious to propitiate them. It is safe to say that an overwhelming majority of these are women, whose comparative lack of education makes them highly susceptible to superstition. There are also many men who in ordinary life would laugh the imps to scorn, and yet when laid upon a bed of sickness or subjected to some other painful casualty are willing enough to compound for their previous scepticism by the payment of large bribes to these same imps.
It comes out, as we have said, in times of trouble. Korean folk-tales frequently have to deal with a situation where a gentleman is ill, but will have nothing to do with the spirits. His wife, however, holds the opposite opinion, and, unknown to her lord, smuggles in a mundang, or pansu, to exorcise the demon of disease.
We have already pointed out the fact that, as a rule, women are the best supporters of Buddhism, owing to the very inferior position which Confucianism accords them. The latter cult is the avowed enemy of the belief in goblins and imps, but Buddhism has become so mixed up with them that the Korean woman cannot hold to the one without embracing the other. Most Korean gentlemen will scoff at the idea that the spirits have any control over human destiny, but they put nothing in the way of their wives' adhesion to the lower cult.
Hulbert, Homer B. The Passing of Korea. London: W. Heinemann, 1906.
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