唐代 士人의 抑佛論과 禪宗

Abstract

This paper aims at understanding the argument of Buddhist criticism by literati in the Tang dynasty. They focused on socioeconomic damage of recruiting peasants in accordance with Buddhist constructions in 8th century. They recognized that Buddhist enlightenment should be sought from 'the heart' rather than 'anything that is exposed to the outside', and asserted that excessive corvee labor duties of the peasants is wrong. Therefore, they insisted on the realization of basic values such as benevolence, equality, and give alms. There was a close relationship with the doctrine of the Diamond Sūtra which emphasize 'no external phases', and it can be seen that the literati used it as a criteria for Buddhist criticism. The Tang Dynasty had faced a financial crisis since the Anshi Rebellion. The literati continued to indicate various problems caused by Buddhism and proposed specific reform measures such as the division of the temple and monastery class, the strengthening of the qualification of Buddhist monks and nuns. The Tang dynasty even enforced Hui-Chang Persecution to clear the harms. But it was difficult to completely solve the problems, the literati still emphasized the economic burden of rehabilitation of Buddhist temples and monasteries in the course of the restoration of Buddhism. Even though they criticized Buddhism, it was never a denial of Buddhism itself except a few literati. They were closely related to Buddhism in their lives, and Chan(Zen) was regarded as the root of Buddhism. This recognition was the result of accepting the doctrine of Chinese Chan Buddhism. Chinese Chan Buddhism enacted the principle of puqing(普請), which imposed everyone in conglin(叢林) to engage in production work. This was a powerful response to the criticism of the parasitic attributes that the monk did not engage in production labor. It is uncertain, of course, whether the principle of puqing was a direct measure against the Buddhist criticism of the literati. It can be a coincidence of the development of Buddhist doctrine. However, we must consider that the literati interacted closely with the monks, and there were many monks from confucian scholars. In addition, the fact that the size of Buddhist temple and monastery, the presence of Buddhist statues was not affected to perform the chan meditation was able to escape criticism from excessive Buddhist construction. As mentioned by Hui-neng, any place is good enough for chan performance and does not necessarily have to be a temple. For this reason, the daily life Chan Buddhism was accelerated, and increased all kinds of small Buddhist temples and many Tanyue(檀越) who sponsored the Buddhist temples. I think this tendency implies the rise of the new ruling class in the Tang-Song transition.