Buddhist Ritual Handbooks and the Social Order in Late Chosŏn Korea

Two liturgical handbooks Chagi mun chŏlch’a choyŏl 仔夔文節次條列(Procedures of Zikui’s Handbook, Itemized and Listed), compiled by Kyep’a Sŏngnŭng 桂坡性能 in 1745, and Pŏmŭm sanbojip 梵音刪補集 (Buddhist Liturgy, A Revised Collection), also compiled in the first half of the eighteenth-century, by the monk Chihwan 智還, were based on Chinese works about the ritual for the spirits of water and land (suryukchae 水陸齋), but were adapted to suit Korean needs and circumstances. Although it has been suggested that some of the adaptations were prompted by the popularization of Buddhism in the Late Chosŏn period, a case can be made that they rather provide evidence for the degree to which Buddhism remained thoroughly enmeshed with the state as well as with elite and court culture, in spite of the common supposition that Buddhism at the time suffered oppression because of the hegemony of Confucianism. The liturgies can be read as the blueprint of a hierarchical, historically grounded national community as envisaged by the ruling elite.