Wonhyo
Encyclopedia
Wonhyo was one of the leading thinkers, writers and commentators of the Korea
n Buddhist tradition. Essence-Function (體用), a key concept in East Asian Buddhism
and particularly that of Korean Buddhism
, was refined in the syncretic philosophy and worldview of Wonhyo.
As one of the most eminent scholar-monks in Korean history, and an influential figure in the development of the East Asian Buddhist intellectual and commentarial tradition. His extensive literary output runs to over 80 works in 240 fascicles, and some of his commentaries, such as those on the Nirvāṇa Sūtra and the Awakening of Faith ( Mahāyāna-śraddhotpāda Śāstra), became classics revered throughout China and Japan as well as Korea. In fact, his commentary on the Awakening of Faith helped to make it one of the most influential and intensively studied texts in the East Asian Mahāyāna tradition. Chinese masters who were heavily influenced by Wonhyo include Fazang
, Li Tongxuan, and Chengguan
. The Japanese monks Gyonen of the Pure Land Buddhism and Zenshu and Joto of the Faziang school were also influenced by him.
With his life spanning the end of the Three Kingdoms period
and the beginning of the Unified Silla
, Wonhyo played a vital role in the reception and assimilation of the broad range of doctrinal Buddhist streams that flowed into the Korean peninsula at the time. Wonhyo was most interested in, and affected by Tathāgatagarbha, Yogācāra
and Hwaom
thought. However, in his extensive scholarly works, composed as commentaries and essays, he embraced the whole spectrum of the Buddhist teachings which were received in Korea, including such schools as Pure Land
, Nirvana
, Sanlun
and Tiantai
(Lotus Sūtra
school).
, North Gyeongsang province, South Korea
. He had a son, Seol Chong
, who is considered to be one of the great Confucian scholars of Silla.
Wonhyo was famous for singing and dancing in the streets. While the Buddha discouraged such behaviors, his songs and dances were seen as upaya
, or skillful means, meant to help save all sentient beings.
Keel (2004: p. 432), in mentioning bodhisattva
and sentient beings, holds that Wŏnhyo:
He is thought to have founded Korea's lone riverside temple, Silleuksa
, in the late 600s. While Wonhyo was in Bunhwangsa
temple located in Guhwang-dong, Gyeongju
, he wrote a number of books. For such strong association with Wonhyo, a research center and a shrine named Bogwangjeon hall dedicated to Wonhyo's legacy are located in Bunhwangsa.
scriptures, altogether including over eighty works in over two hundred fascicles. Among his most influential works were the commentaries he wrote on the Awakening of Faith, Nirvana Sutra and Vajrasamādhi Sutra
, along with his exposition on the meaning of the two hindrances, the ijangui
. These were treated with utmost respect by leading Buddhist scholars in China
and Japan
, and served to help in placing the Awakening of Faith as the most influential text in the Korean tradition.
Keel (2004: pp. 431–432) positions Wŏnhyo in the emergent context of flux:
(625–702, founder of the Korean Hwaom
school) - were traveling to China where they hoped to study Buddhism further. Somewhere in the region of Baekje
the pair were caught in a heavy downpour and forced to take shelter in what they believed to be an earthen sanctuary. During the night Wonhyo was overcome with thirst, and reaching out grasped what he perceived to be a gourd
, and drinking from it was refreshed with a draught of cool, refreshing water. Upon waking the next morning, however, the companions discovered much to their amazement that their shelter was in fact an ancient tomb littered with human skulls, and the vessel from which Wonhyo had drunk was in fact a human skull full of brackish water. Moved by the experience of believing a gruesome site to be a comfortable haven, and skull of mildewy water a refreshing drink, Wonhyo was astonished at the power of the human mind to transform reality. After this "consciousness-only" enlightenment
experience, he abandoned his plan to go to China. He left the priesthood and turned to the spreading of the Buddhadharma as a layman. Because of this aspect of his character, Wonhyo ended up becoming a popular folk hero in Korea. He was a colleague and friend of the influential Silla Hwaom
monk Uisang
, and an important result of their combined works was the establishment of Hwaeom as the dominant stream of doctrinal thought on the Korean peninsula.
and State University of New York at Stony Brook
.
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
n Buddhist tradition. Essence-Function (體用), a key concept in East Asian Buddhism
East Asian Buddhism
East Asian Buddhism is a collective term for the schools of Mahayana Buddhism that developed in the East Asian region and follow the Chinese Buddhist canon...
and particularly that of Korean Buddhism
Korean Buddhism
Korean Buddhism is distinguished from other forms of Buddhism by its attempt to resolve what it sees as inconsistencies in Mahayana Buddhism. Early Korean monks believed that the traditions they received from foreign countries were internally inconsistent. To address this, they developed a new...
, was refined in the syncretic philosophy and worldview of Wonhyo.
As one of the most eminent scholar-monks in Korean history, and an influential figure in the development of the East Asian Buddhist intellectual and commentarial tradition. His extensive literary output runs to over 80 works in 240 fascicles, and some of his commentaries, such as those on the Nirvāṇa Sūtra and the Awakening of Faith ( Mahāyāna-śraddhotpāda Śāstra), became classics revered throughout China and Japan as well as Korea. In fact, his commentary on the Awakening of Faith helped to make it one of the most influential and intensively studied texts in the East Asian Mahāyāna tradition. Chinese masters who were heavily influenced by Wonhyo include Fazang
Fazang
Fazang was the third of the five patriarchs of the Huayan school. He is said to have authored over a hundred volumes of essays and commentaries. He is famed for his empirical demonstrations in the court of Empress Wu Zetian. His essays "On a Golden Lion" and "On a Mote of Dust" are among the most...
, Li Tongxuan, and Chengguan
Chengguan (monk)
Chengguan was an important representative of the Huayan school of Chinese Buddhism, under whom the school gained great influence. Chengguan was the master of several emperors. With his special relationship to the political leaders, Cheng-kuan earned the title "the Hua-yen Bodhisattva" and was...
. The Japanese monks Gyonen of the Pure Land Buddhism and Zenshu and Joto of the Faziang school were also influenced by him.
With his life spanning the end of the Three Kingdoms period
Three Kingdoms of Korea
The Three Kingdoms of Korea refer to the ancient Korean kingdoms of Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla, which dominated the Korean peninsula and parts of Manchuria for much of the 1st millennium...
and the beginning of the Unified Silla
Silla
Silla was one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, and one of the longest sustained dynasties in...
, Wonhyo played a vital role in the reception and assimilation of the broad range of doctrinal Buddhist streams that flowed into the Korean peninsula at the time. Wonhyo was most interested in, and affected by Tathāgatagarbha, Yogācāra
Yogacara
Yogācāra is an influential school of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing phenomenology and ontology through the interior lens of meditative and yogic practices. It developed within Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism in about the 4th century CE...
and Hwaom
Hwaom
Hwaeom is the name of the Korean transmission of the Huayan school of Chinese Buddhism.The greatest lasting impact of the Huayan school was to be seen in Korea, where it was transmitted by Uisang , who had been, along with Fazang, a student of Zhiyan...
thought. However, in his extensive scholarly works, composed as commentaries and essays, he embraced the whole spectrum of the Buddhist teachings which were received in Korea, including such schools as Pure Land
Pure land
A pure land, in Mahayana Buddhism, is the celestial realm or pure abode of a Buddha or Bodhisattva. The various traditions that focus on Pure Lands have been given the nomenclature Pure Land Buddhism. Pure lands are also evident in the literature and traditions of Taoism and Bön.The notion of 'pure...
, Nirvana
Nirvana
Nirvāṇa ; ) is a central concept in Indian religions. In sramanic thought, it is the state of being free from suffering. In Hindu philosophy, it is the union with the Supreme being through moksha...
, Sanlun
Sanlun
Mādhyamaka in East Asia refers to the Buddhist traditions in East Asia which represent the Indian Mādhyamaka system of thought. In Chinese Buddhism, these are often referred to as the Sānlùn school Mādhyamaka in East Asia refers to the Buddhist traditions in East Asia which represent the Indian...
and Tiantai
Tiantai
Tiantai is an important school of Buddhism in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. In Japan the school is known as Tendai, and in Korea it is known as Cheontae. Tiantai is also called the "Lotus School", due to its emphasis on the Lotus Sūtra as its doctrinal basis...
(Lotus Sūtra
Lotus Sutra
The Lotus Sūtra is one of the most popular and influential Mahāyāna sūtras, and the basis on which the Tiantai and Nichiren sects of Buddhism were established.-Title:...
school).
Biography
Wonhyo was born in Apnyang (押梁), nowadays the city of GyeongsanGyeongsan
Gyeongsan is a city in North Gyeongsang Province, South Korea. Its western border abuts the metropolitan city of Daegu, and much of Gyeongsan lies within the Daegu metropolitan area....
, North Gyeongsang province, South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
. He had a son, Seol Chong
Seol Chong
Seol Chong was a leading scholar of the Unified Silla period. He studied Confucian writings and the related Chinese classics. He is also known by the courtesy name Chongji and the pen name Bingwoldang....
, who is considered to be one of the great Confucian scholars of Silla.
Wonhyo was famous for singing and dancing in the streets. While the Buddha discouraged such behaviors, his songs and dances were seen as upaya
Upaya
Upaya is a term in Mahayana Buddhism which is derived from the root upa√i and refers to a means that goes or brings one up to some goal, often the goal of Enlightenment. The term is often used with kaushalya ; upaya-kaushalya means roughly "skill in means"...
, or skillful means, meant to help save all sentient beings.
Keel (2004: p. 432), in mentioning bodhisattva
Bodhisattva
In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is either an enlightened existence or an enlightenment-being or, given the variant Sanskrit spelling satva rather than sattva, "heroic-minded one for enlightenment ." The Pali term has sometimes been translated as "wisdom-being," although in modern publications, and...
and sentient beings, holds that Wŏnhyo:
...tried to embody in his own life the ideal of a bodhisattva who works for the well-being of all sentient beings. Transcending the distinction of the sacred and the secular, he married a widower princess, visited villages and towns, and taught people with songs and dances.
He is thought to have founded Korea's lone riverside temple, Silleuksa
Silleuksa
Shilleuksa is a Korean Buddhist temple situated against a low hill on the north side of the river Namhan, two miles east of Yeoju in Gyeonggi Province, approximately one-hour southeast of Seoul. The only riverside temple in Korea, Shilleuksa is a sacred pilgrimage site and a repository of seven...
, in the late 600s. While Wonhyo was in Bunhwangsa
Bunhwangsa
Bunhwangsa is a temple complex from the Old Silla era of Korea. It is located in Gyeongju. The temple is recorded to have been built in 634 under the auspices of Queen Seondeok...
temple located in Guhwang-dong, Gyeongju
Gyeongju
Gyeongju is a coastal city in the far southeastern corner of North Gyeongsang province in South Korea. It is the second largest city by area in the province after Andong, covering with a population of 269,343 people according to the 2008 census. Gyeongju is southeast of Seoul, and east of the...
, he wrote a number of books. For such strong association with Wonhyo, a research center and a shrine named Bogwangjeon hall dedicated to Wonhyo's legacy are located in Bunhwangsa.
Contribution to commentarial tradition
He wrote commentaries on virtually all of the most influential MahāyānaMahayana
Mahāyāna is one of the two main existing branches of Buddhism and a term for classification of Buddhist philosophies and practice...
scriptures, altogether including over eighty works in over two hundred fascicles. Among his most influential works were the commentaries he wrote on the Awakening of Faith, Nirvana Sutra and Vajrasamādhi Sutra
Vajrasamadhi-sutra
The Vajrasamadhi-sutra is one of the supreme teachings given by Vairocana-shakyamuni Buddha. Over the centuries the Sanskrit manuscript of the Vajrasamadhi-sutra has vanished and today, many scholars deny that the sutra was spoken by the Buddha, believing it to have been the work of a Korean...
, along with his exposition on the meaning of the two hindrances, the ijangui
Ijangui
The Ijangui, or Doctrine of the Two Hindrances, is an in-depth treatise concerning the various theories developed on the doctrine of the two hindrances of the Yogācāra school of Buddhism, by the Korean scholar-monk Wonhyo...
. These were treated with utmost respect by leading Buddhist scholars in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, and served to help in placing the Awakening of Faith as the most influential text in the Korean tradition.
Keel (2004: pp. 431–432) positions Wŏnhyo in the emergent context of flux:
Wŏnhyo, commonly regarded as the greatest thinker in Korean Buddhism, was a prolific writer who produced no less than eighty-six works, of which twenty-three are extant either completely or partially. By his time, most of the important sūtras and treatises had flowed into Korea from China, and they were causing a great deal of confusion for Silla Buddhists, as they had for the Chinese. It was Wŏnhyo's genius to interpret all of the texts known to him in a way that would reveal their underlying unity of truth without sacrificing the distinctive message of each text. He found his hermeneutical key in the famous Mahāyāna text, the Awakening of Faith (Dasheng Qixin Lun).
Teaching story
Wonhyo spent the earlier part of his career as a monk. In 661 he and a close friend - UisangUisang
Uisang was one of the most eminent early Silla Korean scholar-monks, a close friend of Wonhyo .He traveled to China, studying at Mount Zhongnan as a student of the influential Huayan master Zhiyan and as a senior colleague of Fazang , with whom he established a lifelong correspondence...
(625–702, founder of the Korean Hwaom
Hwaom
Hwaeom is the name of the Korean transmission of the Huayan school of Chinese Buddhism.The greatest lasting impact of the Huayan school was to be seen in Korea, where it was transmitted by Uisang , who had been, along with Fazang, a student of Zhiyan...
school) - were traveling to China where they hoped to study Buddhism further. Somewhere in the region of Baekje
Baekje
Baekje or Paekche was a kingdom located in southwest Korea. It was one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, together with Goguryeo and Silla....
the pair were caught in a heavy downpour and forced to take shelter in what they believed to be an earthen sanctuary. During the night Wonhyo was overcome with thirst, and reaching out grasped what he perceived to be a gourd
Gourd
A gourd is a plant of the family Cucurbitaceae. Gourd is occasionally used to describe crops like cucumbers, squash, luffas, and melons. The term 'gourd' however, can more specifically, refer to the plants of the two Cucurbitaceae genera Lagenaria and Cucurbita or also to their hollow dried out shell...
, and drinking from it was refreshed with a draught of cool, refreshing water. Upon waking the next morning, however, the companions discovered much to their amazement that their shelter was in fact an ancient tomb littered with human skulls, and the vessel from which Wonhyo had drunk was in fact a human skull full of brackish water. Moved by the experience of believing a gruesome site to be a comfortable haven, and skull of mildewy water a refreshing drink, Wonhyo was astonished at the power of the human mind to transform reality. After this "consciousness-only" enlightenment
Bodhi
Bodhi is both a Pāli and Sanskrit word traditionally translated into English with the word "enlightenment", but which means awakened. In Buddhism it is the knowledge possessed by a Buddha into the nature of things...
experience, he abandoned his plan to go to China. He left the priesthood and turned to the spreading of the Buddhadharma as a layman. Because of this aspect of his character, Wonhyo ended up becoming a popular folk hero in Korea. He was a colleague and friend of the influential Silla Hwaom
Hwaom
Hwaeom is the name of the Korean transmission of the Huayan school of Chinese Buddhism.The greatest lasting impact of the Huayan school was to be seen in Korea, where it was transmitted by Uisang , who had been, along with Fazang, a student of Zhiyan...
monk Uisang
Uisang
Uisang was one of the most eminent early Silla Korean scholar-monks, a close friend of Wonhyo .He traveled to China, studying at Mount Zhongnan as a student of the influential Huayan master Zhiyan and as a senior colleague of Fazang , with whom he established a lifelong correspondence...
, and an important result of their combined works was the establishment of Hwaeom as the dominant stream of doctrinal thought on the Korean peninsula.
English translation project
Wonhyo's twenty-three extant works are currently in the process of being translated into English as a joint project between Dongguk UniversityDongguk University
Dongguk University is a private, coeducational university in South Korea. It operates campuses in Seoul, in Gyeongju City, North Gyeongsang province and in Los Angeles, United States...
and State University of New York at Stony Brook
State University of New York at Stony Brook
The State University of New York at Stony Brook, also known as Stony Brook University, is a public research university located in Stony Brook, New York, on the North Shore of Long Island, about east of Manhattan....
.
Taekwondo sequence
The International Taekwon-Do Federation pattern "Won-Hyo" is named in Wonhyo's honor. This pattern consists of 28 movements, and is the pattern for the green belt student.Further reading
- Buswell, Robert E., Jr. "The Biographies of the Korean Monk Wŏnhyo (617-686): A Study in Buddhist Hagiography." Peter H Lee, ed. Biography as Genre in Korean Literature. Berkeley: Center for Korean Studies, 1989.
- Buswell, Robert E., Jr. Cultivating Original Enlightenment: Wonhyo's Exposition of the Vajrasamādhi-Sūtra. University of Hawaii Press, 2007.
- Kim, Jong-in. Philosophical contexts for Wŏnhyo's interpretation of Buddhism. Seoul: Jimoondang, 2004.
- Muller, A. Charles (2007). "Wonhyo's Reliance on Huiyuan in his Exposition of the Two Hindrances". In Reflecting Mirrors: Perspectives on Huayan Buddhism (Imre Hamar, ed., Harrassowitz Verlag), p. 281-295. Source: http://www.acmuller.net/articles/wonhyo-huiyuan-2006.html (accessed: January 7, 2008)
- Muller, A. Charles (2002). "Wŏnhyo's Interpretation of the Hindrances". International Journal of Buddhist Thought and Culture. Vol. 2, 2003. pp. 123–135.Source: http://www.acmuller.net/kor-bud/wonconf.html (accessed: January 7, 2008)
- Muller, A. Charles (2000). "On Wŏnhyo's Ijangui (二障義)." Journal of Korean Buddhist Seminar, Vol. 8, July 2000, p. 322-336.Source: http://www.acmuller.net/articles/ijangui-hanguk_pulgyohak.html (accessed: January 7, 2008)
- Muller, A. Charles (1995). "The Key Operative Concepts in Korean Buddhist Syncretic Philosophy; Interpenetration and Essence-Function in Wŏnhyo, Chinul and Kihwa." Bulletin of Toyo Gakuen University, vol. 3 (1995), pp. 33–48.Source: http://www.acmuller.net/budkor/wonhyo-chinul-kihwa.htm (accessed: January 7, 2008)
- Sung-bae Park (2008). 'Wonhyo: Coming to the West―Yet No One Recognizes Him.' International Journal of Buddhist Thought & Culture February 2008, Vol.10, pp. 7–18. International Association for Buddhist Thought and Culture. Source: http://ftp.buddhism.org/Publications/IABTC/Vol10_Abs.pdf (accessed: Saturday October 31, 2009)