중국 ‘동서문화 논쟁’이 근대불교에 미친 영향

Abstract

The ‘East-West culture debate’ (東西文化論爭), a discussion about the essence of Eastern and Western culture, arose in connection with the problem of how to accept Western culture in modern China, and served as an important ideological background for philosophy and religion. At that time, intellectuals were divided into the Eastern and Western cultural groups and held a large-scale debate. The Eastern Culture School emphasized the superiority of Eastern culture by viewing it as a superior spiritual culture and Western culture as a low-grade material culture. The Eastern Culture School criticized the West as a material civilization without spirituality, and rationalized that the fact that the East was materially inferior to the West was because it focused only on spirituality. This played a role in boosting nationalistic pride by enhancing the value of traditional culture and traditional philosophy. In contrast, the Western culture faction believed that Eastern culture was an ancient relic that had not yet escaped from ancient culture, and that only Western culture was truly modern culture. Since society is evolving from ancient culture to modern culture, it was considered a historical necessity for Eastern culture to unconditionally transition to Western culture. Therefore, it was said that the East needed to fully accept Western culture. This East-West cultural view also had a great influence on modern Buddhism. It can be said that followers of Consciousness-only Buddhism admired the ideas of the Western cultural school, while those who emphasized traditional Chinese Buddhism or attempted to modernize Buddhism followed the position of the Eastern cultural school.