Surveying Buddhist Cultural Heritage Lost During the Korean War

For the half-century following the armistice halting the Korean War (1950–1953), the immense loss of Korea’s Buddhist cultural heritage during the conflict has remained largely unexamined by scholars and historians, not only because of the topic’s immense scope and sensitivity but also the dearth of accurate and objective information. Thus, the research and resulting publications launched by Jogye Order’s Ministry of Culture in 2003 provide an invaluable and comprehensive survey of the hundreds of Buddhist temples and thousands of related cultural assets lost or damaged during the war. These efforts, however, have faced numerous difficulties. The ROK government made almost no official attempts to survey and catalog the damage sustained by the nation’s Buddhist temples during the war or its aftermath. Instead, by necessity, the Jogye Order’s surveys rely heavily on firsthand accounts of survivors, many of whom have since passed away, that were recorded often many decades after the war itself. The temple property records compiled by the Japanese Colonial Government likewise provide an important source for Jogye Order researchers in determining which temple assets were destroyed or lost during the conflict. However, in many instances, these records are incomplete or only note the names and numbers of assets that are now lost. Nor are such records insightful regarding what became of such assets but only indicate their current absence. Fortunately, over recent decades, the Jogye Order archivists have invested significant time and effort into digitizing surviving historical records and miscellanea recovered from individual temples.