Gender Specificity in Late-Choson Buddhist Kasa

Abstract

Examining Buddhist discursive vernacular songs or pulgyo kasa of the late Choson period, this paper explores the reasons for Buddhism’s enduring appeal to Choson women. It asks whether there were conscious attempts on the part of the clergy to reach out directly to female believers through such kasa at a time when Buddhism was experiencing extremely harsh government sanctions designed to eradicate or limit its influence and power. Another question posed is whether Buddhism(as evidenced by these kasa) appeared to offer women an attractive alternative to thoroughly dominant state-imposed Neo-Confucian moral ideals of behaviour. This paper concludes that male composers of the pulgyo kasa genre were indeed reaching out to a female audience. Despite this, however, it finds that these vernacular songs yielded no viable alternative to the strict observance of Neo-Confucian social and gender hierarchies and gender-specific moral precepts. Rather, these songs served to reinforce the already acute awareness of the dominant Confucian ideology.