In 1911, the Japanese Governor-General Office established regulations of Korean Buddhist Temples, effectively colonizing Korean Buddhism. The regulations heavily influenced modern Korean Buddhism during its occupation period (1910-45) and continue to do so to the present. In complete acquiescence to these regulations, the Korean government passed the Law of the Management of Buddhist Properties in 1962 to control all of Korean Buddhist Temples under the hands of its dictator, Bak Jeonghui. Because progressive Buddhist activists protested against the undemocratic law, the government substituted it with the Law of the Preservation of Traditional Temples in 1987. Even though the scope of the government’s control was reduced from all Buddhist temples to the traditional temples, the current Korean government is still imposing the undemocratic law to manipulate Korean Buddhism by continuously revising it in to appease Korean Buddhist opposition.
Based on the regulations, the Japanese colonial government organized all of Korean Buddhist temples under its bureaucratic hierarchy and established the system of the thirty parish headquarter temples in which the vertical relations between the headquarter temple and its respective branch temples are strictly regulated. In order to easily rule Korean Buddhism, the Japanese Governor-General Office approved the abbots, in contrast to the Korean Buddhist tradition in which abbots are appointed in accordance with the unanimous recommendations of monastic members. The articles and bylaws of the thirty parish headquarter temples had to be approved by the government. The regulations also stipulated that all Korean temples must report their temple affairs in detail to the government.
While or after pursuing education in Buddhist Studies at universities in Japan, many Korean monastics got married through the influence from married monasticism of Japanese Buddhism. The Japanese colonial government encouraged the thirty parish headquarter temples to change their articles and bylaws so that married, pro-Japanese monastics could become abbots through whom Japan could smoothly controlled Korean Buddhism. Because their abbotships were approved by the government, it was economically and politically prudent to be loyal its will. The married monastics also privatized temple properties to support their families. In short, the Japanese derived system destroyed traditional Korean celibate monasticism and brought about the loss of monastic properties.
In one hand, Korean progressive activists reacted against Japanese control of Korean Buddhist temples and properties and began to demand that the Japan’s Governor-General Office abolish the regulations and the parish system in the early 1920s, this is, just since the massive March 1, 1919 movement for independence from Japan. However, they were unsuccessful in nullifying the regulations because pro-Japanese abbots and Japan’s colonial government crushed the movement. On the other hand, Korean Seon practitioners initiated the Center for Seon Studies in 1920, just after the March 1 movement, and tried to recover Korean Buddhism’s celibate tradition and other conventions of Korean Seon Buddhism. After the liberation from Japan in 1945, activists purged Korean Buddhism of Japanese married monasticism between May 1954 and April 1962. This is known as the Buddhist Purification Movement.
