UCLA

Studies have shown the lasting impact of militarism and violence on gender, class, the economy, and religion in Korea during the 20th century. My dissertation seeks to explain Korean Buddhism’s place in these developments through a study of the Buddhist military chaplaincy. I center the chaplaincy because it represents a point of continuity in the long history of Buddhism’s involvement in war and state-supported violence in Korea, while bridging the colonial, early South Korean, and contemporary periods of modern Korean history. Though the U.S. and South Korean Christian military chaplaincy might seem to be the most obvious analog to the institution, I argue the Buddhist chaplaincy was more influenced by the history of Buddhism and war in Korea and the Korean Buddhist experience during Japanese colonization. Additionally, transnational ties between South Vietnamese and South Korean Buddhist leadership in the 1960’s—not merely South Korea’s entrance into the Vietnam War—shaped the early development of the chaplaincy. Furthermore, in order to justify the need for a Buddhist chaplaincy, Buddhist leaders had to position themselves as pro-military and anti-communist, entangling themselves in President Park Chung Hee’s authoritarian military regime. I argue, however, that Buddhist leaders were chiefly motivated to secure their version of religious freedom, one in which the majority religion is privileged by the state. Nonetheless, the chaplaincy deepened ties between the major Buddhist order and the government. State violence received a form of justification from the involvement of the Buddhist community. This relationship between the state and the Buddhist Order, reinforced by the military chaplaincy, continues to influence the trajectory of Korean Buddhism still today.