Goryeo, the Buddhist state
Under the Goryeo dynasty, from 918 to 1392, Buddhism was the religion of the state. Monasteries were endowed, state rituals were Buddhist, and monks held influence at court.
Its greatest undertaking was the Tripitaka Koreana. An earlier set of woodblocks was burned during the Mongol invasions, and the replacement, 81,258 blocks, was completed in 1251. They are still kept at Haeinsa, in wooden depositories that have preserved them for over seven hundred years, and they remain usable. Both the blocks and the buildings are UNESCO listed.
Jinul
Jinul, who lived from 1158 to 1210, faced a split his tradition had inherited: Seon meditation on one side, doctrinal study on the other, each inclined to dismiss the other. He argued that they are one practice, and summed it up as sudden awakening followed by gradual cultivation: a genuine insight does not end the work of training.
He reorganised practice at the monastery now called Songgwangsa, and his synthesis still underlies Korean Buddhism's combination of meditation, study and devotion in a single training.
Joseon
From 1392 the new dynasty governed on Confucian principles, and Buddhism lost its position. Monastic lands were confiscated, the many orders were merged into two and then fewer, city temples were closed and monastic life moved into the mountains, where it quietly continued.
Monks fought as organised units during the Japanese invasions of the 1590s, which won the order some respite. Five centuries of disfavour left Korean Buddhism poorer, more rural and more meditative than it had been.
Why it matters
Its fortunes rise and fall with royal favour, yet the tradition endures.
History and tradition
What historians can say
Dynastic records, Jinul's own writings and the surviving blocks and buildings make this period well documented.