Never Forgetting: Tonghak, Cheondogyo, and independence

It seems fitting that my last post on Korea would bring us back to my first one. During the end of the 19th century conditions in Joseon controlled Korea were rapidly deteriorating for both the working class and the nation itself. Many farmers were living in abject poverty under harsh landlords and much of the ruling class was dealing with the beginnings of a cultural invasion being mounted on multiple fronts by the Catholic Church, Europe, and Japan collectively known as Sohak (Western Learning). In many ways this assault being mounted by Sohak meant that traditions endemic to Korea, such as Musim and Korean Buddhism, were being dramatically changed or under the threat of potential elimination. In other words it was a culture in deep crisis.

In the midst of this was Ch'oe Che'u, a man who had a great deal of trouble getting started in life. Around 1860 he was struck down with a strange incurable illness, that was, of course, until he was gripped with a vision of a spirit known as Sangje. The spirit commanded him to take up the path of spiritual teaching and save Korea and the world with it. Ch'oe asked the spirit if he was to teach Sohak to which the spirit laughed and said no, he would spread Tonghak (Eastern Learning) instead. Snagje then handed him a piece of paper inscribed with 21 characters that could cure people's sicknesses as well as the sickness of the world around them. Ch'oe then took this new way, and new god, into himself by eating the paper and suddenly his sickness was gone

So much swaggger = Ch'oe

Ch'oe then went about and spread his teaching throughout the south of Korea. It quickly gained a following which quickly lead Ch'oe to be arrested and killed for spreading a superstitious tradition (thereby preventing Korea from modernizing). However, his nephew carried on the teaching and the group grew in popularity. Over the next thirty years the group was quiet but then in 1894 the corruption and incompetency of the government pushed the movement into a full fledged rebellion.

sadly it was nothing like this

The rebellion was initially successful and managed to rout many of the government's forces. However, in March the government launched a counter-scorched-earth-campaign causing the rebellion to become a civil war, or the Peasant War of 1894. The war ended but only after the horrific Battle of Ugeumchi, lasting from late October to Early November, wherein the Japanese Army intervened and used their superior technology to slaughter the Tonghak Army.

However, that was not the end of the movement as the leaders pushed the group back underground and gradually changed it into Cheondoism, the modern version of Tonghak that we know today. The groups value of Korean teachings would continue to inform and aid Korean bids for independence to the point that 15 of the 23 signers of the March 1st Movement's Deceleration of Independence were followers of Cheondoism.

Which leads us back to where we began. To be honest this was not something I was expecting to happen. After i finished investigating the March 1st Movement I didn't think it would figure back into Korean religious history, but of course (as is becoming the trend on this blog) I was wrong. Upon reading that Tonghak/Cheondoism was the background to the March 1st Movement I'm pretty sure I looked like this:

This is what most of my revelations look like 

Why you ask? Well two very important reasons. Reason number 1 is that I always get chills when shit I'm working on spontaneously interconnects (like how my theory of religion came together last semester). Reason number 2 is that Tonghak/Cheondoism is a syncretist religion. For those of you who don't know, syncretism is "the attempt to reconcile contrary beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought.” Which is exactly what Cheondoism is.

Don't believe me? Lets take a closer look then. Ch'oe had an illness which would not abate until he accepted God into his life and carried out its plan, meaning Cheondoism began from an instance of Muism's divine illness. Secondly the word Cheondogyo (the full name of the religion)  means religion of the heavenly way with Do being the Korean version of the Chinese word for the Dao or way. And while Daoism's influence on Cheondogyo is slight the group does posit that we must bring the world into a paradise modeled on heaven similar to the Daoist view of being in accordance with the way. Thirdly the group takes the idea of a God from Christianity and combines them with more Shamanistic and Buddhist attitudes to create their own version of Haneullim (an ancient Korean god) who they maintain is the one and only god who resides in every human and governs the universe while at the same time is the entirety of the universe.

By combining all of these beliefs into Cheondoism, Ch'oe created a religion which empowered the Korean people by teaching them that God resided inside of all of them therefore everyone had the right to be treated equally and furthermore it is our duty to the god that resides in all of us to fight back against oppression until we achieve a perfect world here and now. Meaning that in addition to Protestantism there was another religious force active in the Korean independence movement. This excited me because I have long maintained that syncretist religions, and popular religions in general, have, when combined with a Place (in this case Korea), often acted as a dynamic force for active resistance against oppression.  And while that is an academic thesis in itself, reading about this piece of history greatly excited me.

So much so that I did this for hours

So this is where we leave Korea (although I don't doubt it will return in passing during our discussions of China) I have to say that these three research projects have been very interesting and I've learned a lot, but throughout this process I keep running into the same key problem. A lack of research. For all of these pieces it was often sheer dumb luck I was able to find anything at all. And I guess this links back to my question of why? Why is there so little information? It's a question I have no way of answering but its an important one.

Additionally this particular project left me wanting to pursue my hypothesis on the connection between syncretism and action against oppression by social movements. I have often found it interesting that the master narrative of many religions have such a distaste for the syncretists tendacies that lie in us all. And how often those who express this distaste the most are those who have to most of lose if a syncretist religion manages to gain enough sway. 

So that's all for today! I hope these wandering of Korea have been as exciting for you as for me

till next time when we'll talk about something to do with current events!

Jacob 

The Flag of Cheondoism

P.S.

God-Head being present now, 

I desire his great descent. 

Serving the Heavenly Lord, I am. 

Never forgetting, I know all things 

--traditional Cheondogyo prayer 

P.P.S.

Interested in syncretism? I used to do a blog on in it, back in the day (the day being 2011) 

http://enlightenmentisgreen.tumblr.com/post/3743616998/what-the-fuck-is-syncretism

P.P.P.S

Once you see something you can't unsee it

Sources 

Grayson, James Huntley. Korea: A Religious History. New York: Routledge, 2002.

History summary of the revolution. JeongeupCity. http://donghak.jeongeup.go.kr/eng/sub2/sub1.html (accessed 2/2, 2012).

Hong, Suhn-kyoung. 1968. Tonghak in the context of korean modernization. Review of Religious Research 10, no. 1: 43.

2004. The tonghak peasant revolution. Association for Asia Research. 2 Jan. 2004. http://www.asianresearch.org/articles/1797.html (accessed 2/2, 2012).

2003. Tonghak revolution and chundoism. Association for Asia Research. http://www.asianresearch.org/articles/1796.html (accessed 2/2, 2012).