Soto sect; imperialism; colonialism; Korea; Takeda Hanshi; kominka movement
摘要
The Soto sect was actively engaged in Buddhist propagation in colonial Korea after having succeeded in establishing its first missionary temple in Pusan in 1905. By the time it withdrew from Korea in 1945, the Soto sect had secured an extensive propagation network connecting more than one hundred temples. Despite its successful Buddhist polemics, Soto Buddhist teachings in Korea were basically political propaganda viable only within the framework of Japanese colonial imperialism. The Soto sect in colonial Korea was deeply involved in the cause of Japanese imperialism by carry ing out three major tasks: Buddhist services for the Japanese military, pro motion of the “kdminka” (transforming [the colonial peoples] into imperial subjects) policy, and the pacification of colonial subjects. Not sur prisingly, none of these goals—which were promoted in the name of Buddhist compassion and non-selfhood in the tradition of Zen Buddhism—could survive the collapse of Imperial Japan’s claim to “universal benevolence” that had been premised on the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere.
