In Buddhism kings' and ruling classes' prospective attitudes for Yulgok's(栗谷) ideas: assigning officials, caring services for the funerals and ritual activities for the graves, and kingdom's living on vegetables, could be the bases in establishing...
In Buddhism kings' and ruling classes' prospective attitudes for Yulgok's(栗谷) ideas: assigning officials, caring services for the funerals and ritual activities for the graves, and kingdom's living on vegetables, could be the bases in establishing, maintaining and increasing of the kingdom Wondangs.
Yulgok's basic problems of assigning officials and caring the ritual activities for the graves depended on whether he had interests in studying Buddhism before or after his going for studying. The problem is whether we can also think of his going for study as that of Jungja(程子) and jooja(朱子) or not.
Before Yulgok's going to the mountains for the study, the fact that he read Neungumkyung(楞嚴經) and after his mother's death and spent a year in a temple meant he had interest in Buddhism not as a religion but a study. Yulgok's interest for the study of Buddhism contributed the scholastic depth of Yulgok's in deed. Lots of Hwaum(華嚴) thought in Yulgok's Sungri Philosophy(性理哲學) can be the proof of the relationship between his study and Buddhism.
There was a big argument in two groups[Seoin(西人) and Namin (南人)] about Yulgok's thought. Pro-group including the Kings and Seoins for Yulgok's thought, thought nothing wrong about the ideas of Yulgok. They regarded Yulgok's thought as a probability. They recognized the worth of the Buddhism in the points of scholastic and humanistic views though Buddhism is different from the confucianism,
We can get the evidences in the chronical researches that showed no limitations for the Buddhism researches if only the study could improve the combination of Confucian and Buddhism. The social environment was ready to face to the flows of the studies. Confucian following Sadaebu(士大夫) had a principle, serving with meat for their worship services for their ancestors. The kingdom on the contrary served with vegetables. This brought the king and the subjects to a hot argue. Many people served with vegetables for their ancestors until the Dynasty of Korea but this made a lot of people think this custom was related with the Buddhism. At that time, people took serving vegetables for the clear mind. In the beginning of the Chosun Dynasty, people served the vegetables for their worships especially in the worship services of the funeral rites and grave worship rites. At the moment of the king's death in Myung(明) in China, all the people of the Myung then ate vegetables and wore funeral dress for the honor of the deads.
In the later Chosun Dynasty, the arguments were getting serious and worse in discussions of conflict between kings and subjects. The core factors in conflict discussions were which the causes lay in traditional custom or Buddhism respect. Usually the kings wanted to regard it as a traditional custom come from the former kings instead the subjects treated it the family of the kings' Buddhism respect. The vegetable service for the remembrance rites was the combination of the confucianism and the Buddhism. Namins refused. to agreed to the vegetable worship service with energy. Powerful supports of Noron(老論) and Soron(小論) were the energy of the establishments of Wondangs in later Chosun Dynasty.