Sem Vermeersch

 10.18399/acta.2015.18.1.003

Wŏnhyo (617–686) Zhiyi (538–597) Religion politics totalitarianism political integration ideological integration Tiantai (Ch’ŏnt’ae)

While there is now a truly staggering amount of contemporary research available on Wŏnhyo, the majority of it is focused on his contribution to Buddhist thought or to philosophy in general. This article, by contrast, seeks to explore to what extent what I term his summa theologica—i.e. his grand synthesis of all Buddhist knowledge—had repercussions for the political integration of the Korean peninsula that took place during his lifetime. Although previous research has already suggested that there are parallels between his integration of Buddhist schools into one system and the political integration of the Three Kingdoms, this has mostly not moved beyond noting the similarities. This article argues that in this case one of the most fruitful avenues of exploring the possible relationship between Buddhist thought and politics is the concept of “integrating the three and returning to the one” (hoesam kwiil). This concept, derived from the Lotus sūtra, was hotly debated in sixth and seventh century China and Korea, yet its political implications have been largely ignored. It is only thanks to a Koryŏ text by Min Chi that we know about this implication, and this article traces its political use back to Zhiyi and his entourage, and then tries to assess how it may have been conceived by Wŏnyo.