1930년대 후반 조선총독부의 ‘心田開發運動’ 전개와 조선불교계 = The Joseon Chongdokbu(the Government-general of Korea under the rule of Japan)'s commencement of the Simieon(literally ental farm, whick means the mind) Development Movement and the response of the Buddist society of Joseon in late 1930's

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Imperialist Japan faced the situation of unavoidable isolation from the international society on the verge of its invasion of the main land China in the late 1930's. Under this situation, imperialist Japan was worrying about any possible outcry of Korean populace’s complaints. Governor Ugaki who was dispatched to Korea in 1931 tried to drive the colonized Koreans into the spiritual citizenship of loyal and meek subject of the Japanese Empire, and then to go further to securing the supplies of manpower and the materials. Under these circumstances, the development movement of the farm of agriculture and fisheries on the material side and the mind development campaign on the mental side were drafted to be proceeded with. The two movement were proceeded with under the slogan of “Mul-sim-il-yeo”(The material and the mind are the same as each other).
Governor Ugaki who held office under these circumstances recognized that the agritural reality of Joseon(Korea) is a seriously bad situation therefore, was made to draft a program of the development of the farm of agriculture and the fishieries. In this process, he felt it necessary to mentally control the Korean populace to make a material revitalization.
To overcome the Japanese reality of facing crisis in the international society, the stable basic life of the Korean populace was absolutely needed. Moreover, to permeate their national “Sindo”(Japanese belief which means “the Divine Way”) they worship as the ideology of “Dennoheika(Divine Emperor)regime” into Korea as well, the ideology was needed to effectively control and mobilize the Joseon populace.
Although, what Japan could mobilize as an alternative to Korean belief was at last their “Sindo”, in fact, this “Sindo” was set to be the upper notion of those different religions of which they also recognized the existence, because it could not easily become familiar with the emotion of Koreans and the freedom of religion is guaranteed in the Korean Constitution.
In these papers, I tried to find out in what style Joseon Buddhist society was utilized in the abovementioned mind development especially by giving focus on Buddhism out of those religions utilized in the mind development. Although this mind development movement was drafed and superintended by the Joseon government-grneral, in the process of execution, it had become a movement which had the character of government-driven one in an effort to drive out the energy of mental concentration of Joseon populace through the religious society of Joseon.
Imperialist Japan felt the necessity of the establishment of a unified institution to have the command of the Buddhist society to effectively secure the complete command of the Joseon Buddhist society in the execution of the mind develpoment. This necessity gave birth to “Chongbonsan”(General Headquarters)-“Taegosa Temple”(Ancient Temple) established in 1941, which can be called the predecessor of “Jogyesa”(Jogye temple). Imperialist japan proceeded with the purification movement of the Korean temples as a means of execution of the mind development movement. The mind development movement which aims at the mental revitalization could not be effectively carried out under the situation of the degradation of temples into entertainment places of the leisure sites by the mere reason that it is located in the famous sights. The mind development movement has been understood to have been drafted from 1935, it was confirmed by these papers that it was drafted since the year-end of 1933 and the term Simjeon(mind) is not only listed in the Sutra(Buddhist Bible), but also is found in the Confucian scriptures.
Joseon Buddhist society participated in the mind development movement through various events of speech, instruction, discussions, broadcast, P.R., fostering, practice, committee meeeting, acceleration meeting. The success and failure of the mind development movement relied on the spontaneous participation of the Joseon populace. This fact was understood by both of the officials of the authorities concerned of Imperialist J따an and those who had come out of the Joseon Buddhist society, and they tried to encourage the spontaneous participation. Nevertheless, the mind development movement resulted in failure, as the Joseon populace had not shown spontaneous ans positive participation.