Hwaeom (Ch. Huayan, Jap. Kegon) School was probably the most influential indigenous school of Chinese Buddhism. It was established during the Sui dynasty and flourished during the reign of Tang. It absorbed non‐Buddhist Chinese philosophical notions such as essence‐function (體用) logic as well as soteriology of the Yogâcāra and Tathāgatagarbha schools, original enlightenment theory of the Awakening of Faith (大乘起信論) altogether with the notions of emptiness and middle way of Nāgârjuna.
The core of the teaching of the Hwaeom School is theory of mutual interconnectedness and interpenetration of all phenomena. This philosophy of non‐obstruction (無礙) among phenomena and inquiry into the relationship between a part and whole using expressions like “one is many, many is one (一卽多多卽一)” and “in one there is all, in many there is one (一中一切多中一)” proved to have political potential. Already during the Tang Dynasty, when Empress Wu attempted to establish the Zhou Dynasty, she used Fazang’s Huayan philosophy as a means to support the unity of the country.
Despite the fact that the school was almost extinguished during the purge of 845 – 849 in China, it survived in teaching of other schools, especially Chan and lived its own life in Korea and Japan where it was transmitted by Uisang and Simsang respectively. It became a common part of the philosophical heritage of the three countries to be rediscovered later in modern period in context of nationalism.
Nationalism is an ideology and social movement that developed in Europe in close relationship with emergence of modern states and popular sovereignty after the French Revolution. Since that, nationalism has become one of the most important political forces in the modern history. As such, nationalism was transmitted to the East Asia along with various Western philosophical and political thoughts. For the purpose of the thesis, we have analyzed the notions of nation and nationalism from historical and semantic perspectives. We could see that the meaning of the term nation underwent significant changes during the history and was defined and shaped by given historical circumstances. Upon the notion of nation, the concept and movement of nationalism had been evolving over centuries in Europe. We have defined three types of nationalism: (1) etatism, (2) civic and (3) ethnic nationalism.
Since each of the East Asian countries developed its own unique Hwaeom School with its masters and writings and since each country met different historical conditions at the end of the 19th century, the ways how the philosophy was used in relation to nationalism differed significantly.
The most significant representatives of the modern Chinese nationalist thought were Kang Youwei (康有為), Zhang Taiyan (章太炎), Tan Sitong (譚嗣同) and Liang Qichao (梁啟超). Their nationalist philosophy was influenced by (1) Chinese Confucian and Daoist thought, (2) Western political philosophy and also by (3) Buddhist philosophy significantly. Among them, Tan Sitong (1865 – 1898) introduced an eclectic philosophical system with central notion of ether. In this concept, the interconnectedness and mutual relationship of Huayan are utilized. The ether of Tan Sitong works as a medium connecting all beings and allowing their harmony. Based on this worldview, he proposes a new society without classes and also without nations. Thus, the Hwaeom notions of his philosophy led to the concept of utopian world of equality and harmony.
In China, nationalism was growing from the bottom especially from intellectuals, and took the shape of self‐strengthening facing the presence of western powers and anti‐Manchu movement; and in philosophy resulted in several utopist theories like those of Kan Youwei and Tan Sitong. In Japan, on the other hand, nationalism penetrated all society and was conducted rather from the top. Thus, all circles were to participate on it in a way. With increasing aggressivity of Japanese nationalism and altogether with increasing militarization in the early 20th century, also intellectual circles were either voluntarily or involuntarily made to express their position. Accordingly, among Buddhist intellectuals and Buddhist community the Kegon thought was used in order to justify aggressive politics of the country. Due to the theories of interpenetration and relationship of the individual and the whole Kegon was easily connected with totalitarianism. This, we can see in work of Takakusu Junjiro (1866 – 1949). He argued that the ruling system in many countries in the world was totalitarianism and that also Japan should not be apart from it. Thus he articulated specific totalitarianism of Japan, which was said to be superior to other totalitarianisms that emerged in the world also because it is based on Kegon philosophy. Since all things have mutual relationship and nothing is allowed to exist independently, the engi (緣起) of Kegon stands for totalitarianism. The New Japanism based on the “culture of blood” should have the Kegon totalism as its principle.
Kihira Tadayoshi a philosopher influenced by Hegel’s philosophy, was concerned about the doctrine of “non‐obstruction among phenomena.” If this was to be applied to the situation in Japan the people and the emperor would become equal. This logic also has similarities with Western democracy. Therefore he utilized the doctrine of “dependent arising from the tathāgatagarbha.” Accordingly, he argued that Japan stood between the two theories. Each individual is different according to his or her occupation and status, but everyone is equal under the absolute Emperor.
The core of this paper is philosophy and nationalist thought of Korean Buddhist monk, poet and patriot Han Yongun (1879 ‐ 1944) who was the most representative Buddhist thinker and reformer of the modern period who was influenced by Hwaeom. Avataṃsaka‐sūtra (華嚴經) was one of the most important sources of his thought. He quotes it throughout his works and his writings have definitely Hwaeom spirit. In his Great Canon of Buddhism (佛敎大典), a compilation of quotations of Buddhist texts the Avataṃsaka‐sūtra is used most frequently. However, his writings are mostly of the practical kind, rather than purely philosophical works or even merely Hwaeom texts. Therefore, his Hwaeom thought had to be extracted out of them. In the thesis, we focused mostly on the philosophical texts and works and naturally on works related to nationalism, independence and politics in general; namely On Revitalization of Korean Buddhism (朝鮮佛敎維新論), Writing on Korean Independence (朝鮮 獨立의 書) Commentary on Ten Profound Sayings (十玄談註解) and various articles and essays published in newspapers that are gathered and published in Collected works of Han Yongun (韓龍雲全集). We have analyzed Manhae’s writings and pointed out the key Hwaeom concepts such as “non‐obstruction between phenomena”, “six characteristics of conditioned phenomena” and “ten profound gates” spread all over his works.
Then, we looked at his works from the perspective of nationalism. His works responded to the actual situation of the Korean nation oppressed by the Japanese Empire. Therefore he concerned himself with the independence theory. There are three key concepts of his thought: freedom, equality and peace. These three concepts apply to all his philosophy. He emphasized them in relation to individuals as well as to countries and nations. We believe that his notions of freedom and equality are rooted in interconnectedness of all phenomena and mutuality of the Hwaeom School.
His ideal world consists of countries that maintain their identity and independence yet are in harmony with each other. Countries should involve themselves in self‐strengthening but stay in peace with their neighbors.
In the thesis, we have seen that under the different circumstances the application of Hwaeom/Huayan/Kegon philosophy differed significantly. The same notions of harmony among parts of a whole had various outputs. In Chinese Tan Sitong’s thought it resulted in idea of a utopian world, in Japan it was used to justify totalitarianism and expansive politics of imperial Japan. In Manhae’s philosophy it resulted in the concept of peaceful world of independent and strong nations.

• I. 서론 = 1
• 1. 연구 목적과 선행연구 = 1
• 1) 연구목적 = 1
• 2) 선행연구 = 3
• 2. 연구범위와 연구방법 = 6
• II. 민족주의의 의미 = 9
• 1. nation 개념의 형성 = 9
• 2. 내셔널리즘 개념의 이해 = 19
• 1) 서구 내셔널리즘의 역사 = 19
• 2) 내셔널리즘의 종류 = 28
• 3) 동양적 내셔널리즘의 등장 = 32
• 4) 동서양의 내셔널리즘과 민족주의 = 34
• III. 동아시아에서 화엄과 정치의 관계 = 40
• 1. 화엄사상의 핵심교리 = 40
• 1) 법계연기(法界緣起) = 41
• 2) 십현문(十玄門) = 46
• 3) 육상원융(六相圓融) = 52
• 4) 성기사상(性起思想) = 58
• 2. 중국 정치사상과 화엄철학 = 63
• 1) 근대 중국의 역사적 배경 = 63
• 2) 근대 중국에서 불교의 역할 = 67
• 3) 근대 중국 불교와 화엄사상 = 77
• 3. 일본 정치사상과 화엄철학 = 78
• 1) 근대 일본의 역사적 배경 = 78
• 2) 근대 일본에서 화엄사상의 역할 = 88
• 3) 근대 일본화엄사상의 특성 = 101
• 4. 한국 정치사상과 화엄철학 = 103
• 1) 근대 한국의 역사적 배경 = 103
• 2) 근대 한국에서 불교의 역할 = 110
• 3) 근대 한국 불교와 화엄사상 = 115
• IV. 만해의 화엄사상과 민족주의 = 120
• 1. 만해의 불교관과 화엄사상 = 120
• 1) 만해의 인간상 = 120
• 2) 만해의 불교관 = 127
• 3) 만해의 화엄사상 = 137
• 4) 만해의 화엄사상의 의의 = 159
• 2. 만해의 독립사상과 민족주의 = 170
• 1) 만해의 역사의식 = 170
• 2) 자유·평등·평화사상 = 174
• 3) 자강론(自强論)과 비폭력주의 = 178
• 4) 만해의 화엄적 민족주의 = 183
• V. 화엄사상과 민족주의의 결합 = 190
• 1. 근대 동아시아 민족주의와 만해의 민족주의 = 190
• 2. 서구적 내셔널리즘과 화엄적 민족주의 = 196
• VI. 결론 = 203
• 參考文獻 = 208
• ABSTRACT = 215