Three Lectures BY FREDERICK STARR BOSTON MARSHALL JONES COMPANY 1918 COPYRIGHT, 1918 BY MARSHALL JONES COMPANY All rights reserved PRINTED BY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. THIS BOOK ON KOREAN BUDDHISM IS Dedicated TO MY FRIEND AND FELLOW-STUDENT “KUGEN”—OGURI SAN OF TOKYO...

The author does not over-estimate the importance of this little book: it is nothing more than its title claims. It consists of three lectures given to popular audiences, with the accompaniment of many illustrations. It represents, however, a considerable amount of work in an almost virgin field. It has involved hard journeys to remote mountain monasteries, and days and nights of conversation and inquiry with many monks and priests. It is not, however, a profound study nor an exhaustive presentat

Since 1911 it has been my privilege to make four journeys into Korea, so long known as “The Hermit Kingdom.” To-day Korea has ceased to be an independent nation; she has been completely absorbed by Japan and forms part of the Japanese Empire. I found much of interest in the country. I studied the people and their daily life; I visited many of the famous points of interest and beauty; I have studied somewhat into Korean history. Nothing, however, has more interested me than the study of Korean re

With the exile of Buddhism to the mountains several results ensued. In the first place each monastery became a thing by itself; there was no unity, no combination, no force in the movement of Buddhism as such, over the kingdom. In the second place, not being permitted to enter the cities, the Buddhist priests came to be looked upon with contempt by the people; they were, of course, beggars, vowed to poverty—they had always been that, but they had had respect; with their seclusion in the mountain

To-night we are to consider art in Korean Buddhism. We shall examine it under six different forms—scenery, sculpture in stone, wood carving, architecture, images or idols and painting. Perhaps it scarcely seems to you as if scenery—real landscape, not landscape painting—were art. In the Orient, however, it is surely such. Eastern peoples have for hundreds of years been passionately fond of the beautiful in nature. Chinese, Koreans, Japanese will travel on foot or by any possible conveyance many

Gale. The Pagoda of Seoul. Transactions of the Korea Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Vol. VI, Pt. II, pp. 1-22. Seoul: 1915. Gordon. Some Recent Discoveries in Korean Temples and their Relationship to Early Eastern Christianity. Trans. K. B. R. A. S. Vol. V, Pt. II, PP. 1-39. Seoul: 1914. Gordon. Symbols of “the Way”—Far East and West. Tokyo: 1916. Maruzen & Co. Hulbert. History of Korea. Seoul: 1905. 2 vols. Methodist Publishing House. Jones. Colossal Buddha at Eunjin. Trans. K. B.

Hwui-nieh , a Corean, set out for India 638 A.D. , arrived at the Nalanda Temple and there studied the sacred books and reverenced the holy traces. I-tsing found some writing he had left in the temple, where also he had left his Sanskrit MSS. The priests said he died the same year, about sixty years of age. Hiuen Ta’i , a doctor of the law, a Corean, called by the Sanskrit name of Sarvajñanadeva. In the year Yung-hwei (650 A.D. ) he went by the Tibetan road through Nepal to Mid-India; he there w