한국불교계의 종단 난립 원인과 문제점 분석

Abstract

This paper is to analyze the problem and cause of various buddhist orders of Korean Buddhism. Since Korean liberation, new buddhist orders have been made now up to about five hundreds and still continue to increase. Therefore it is important to analyze the social background and cause of increase of Buddhist orders, which were only eighteen before 1988. The main reason of increase of religious orders may be different by researchers. However, I would like to suggest four elements for it. First, it is the conflict and division between the Chogye order and T'aego order, the representative orthodox orders of Korean Buddhism. Second, it is the fact that it was not difficult to establish religious orders by the asset management law of Buddhism in 1988. Hence, new religious orders increased after then. Third, the asset management and human resources of each religious order is a premodern way. Therefore, the division was made by different perspectives. Forth, the shamanistic buddhist orders gradually increase. The devotees following shamans play a major role to build the new buddhist orders of Buddhism. The appearance of new religious orders can be understood as a very positive phenomenon in terms of promoting a new Buddhist movement. However, there are also many issues practically. Although there are many newly established buddhist orders, their religious identification is quite obscure in the point that “Are they the real buddhists?". Moreover, they may not only make the believers confuse the identification of what the real Buddhism is, but also aggravate the distortion of Buddhism. Furthermore, we may lose the social trust on Buddhism. These problems can give a harmful influence to the sound development of Buddhism, so we need to be careful to consider it.