4. Maitreya Buddhism and the Maritime Culture of Practical Statecraft for the People's Welfare after the Battle of Baekchon River
After the Battle of Baekchon River, Dangjin's trauma splits into two branches: commerce and religion. As studies by scholars such as Yun Myeong-cheol[38] show that the Korean Peninsula had exchanges with Japan from early on, the culture of the Old Joseon Ye-Maek people had a strong maritime character from the very beginning.[39] The strongholds of the Chinese Ye-Maek people were all along the coast, and even those extending to the eastern part of the Korean Peninsula were states that set out from the sea.[40] Accordingly, the two branches into which commerce and religion divided both manifest as attributes of maritime culture.
In the case of religion first, there is a continuing creation of standing Buddhist statues that served the healing and redemption of the Ye-Maek-line peoples.[41] The problem of the Battle of Baekchon River was a grave issue for the region at the time, as is also evident in the Eunsan Byeolsinje, in which Docheom and Boksin appear.[42] Among the twenty-eight heavens of Buddhism, Maitreya was the Buddha of compassion who chose Tusita, the lower heaven, for the sake of suffering humanity; and so, unlike the Sakyamuni Buddha that Silla took up, he was one who could be offered to the displaced people of Baekje.[43] The creation of East Asian maritime Buddhist images is distinctively such that, whether Buddha images or Bodhisattva images, all are made in standing-stone form.[44] Buddha images consist mainly of Maitreya Buddhas or cliff-carved Buddhas, and Bodhisattva images mainly of Avalokitesvara (Gwaneum) images. This derives from the ancestral dolmen megalithic culture possessed by the Ye-Maek people, who built East Asian maritime Buddhism.[45] The transmission of Buddhism by sea, as Professor Lewis Lancaster has pointed out, extends beyond East Asia as far as India.[46] In the end, the standing-stone Buddhist images of East Asian maritime Buddhism are connected to the sun worship of dolmens, and in many cases the outward appearance of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas was added to menhirs (standing stones), which are an extension of the dolmen.[47]
The erection of standing Maitreya Buddhist statues after the Battle of Baekchon River appeared domestically in the creation of the Maitreya Buddha of Geumsansa, the Tathagata statue of Gaetaesa, and the Eunjin Maitreya of Gwanchoksa. The standing stone Buddhas of the Dangjin region had a tradition going back to the famous Seosan Rock-carved Buddha Triad.[48] In the case of Unified Silla, by erecting an unprecedented Maitreya at the obscure Geumsansa, healing was brought to the people of the Ye-Maek line.[49]
Although they are the same standing-stone Buddha statues, it is said that there is a difference between the Buddha statues from before and after the Battle of Baekchon River. In particular, in the case of Gaetaesa and Gwanchoksa, which appeared in the Goryeo period, it is said that they possess an attribute of healing and at the same time an attribute of vigilance. The solemn appearance of the Gaetaesa Buddha statue and the colossal standing image of Gwanchoksa are sometimes interpreted as signifying vigilance toward and control over the Baekje refugees.[50]
Among the standing-stone Buddha images of maritime Buddhism, another distinctive feature of the domestic Maitreya is that a cauldron appears in place of the lotus pedestal. The cauldron was a symbol of kingship for the Ye-Maek people;[51] the reason a cauldron could become a symbol of kingship for the Ye-Maek people, who worshipped the sun and Venus,[52] is that it represented the circulation of water driven by the sun.[53] Especially in the case of the Ye-Maek people, who lived close to the sea, the circulation of water driven by the sun also became the circulation of the sea. The Ye-Maek people added the cauldron, a symbol of kingship, to the Maitreya, and beginning with Geumsansa they fashioned the Maitreya standing upon a cauldron rather than a lotus pedestal.[54] At Gaetaesa, too, an iron cauldron (cheolhwak) is famous.[55] This was a characteristic of the Ye-Maek lineage within Korea in particular, one not to be found in Indian or Chinese Buddha images.
That the Ye-Maek people, who succeeded the Shang dynasty, developed a maritime culture is also connected to the commercial culture of the Shang. In Chinese characters, the gong (工) of industry originates from the Gonggong people, a branch of the Ye-Maek,[56] and the sang (商) of commerce originates from the Shang (商) dynasty of the Ye-Maek people.[57] As Lewis Lancaster pointed out, the places where Buddhism actually flourished all led to the development of commerce. The Buddhist idea of transmigration and the circulation of commerce had points of theoretical affinity with each other. In Tibet, too, Buddhism flourished along the Silk Road. There is also a theory that traces the origin of Buddhism to the culture of the past Buddhas among the coastal Ye-Maek people, whose tidal flats were the most developed in the world.[58] The solar culture of the Ye-Maek people is seen by some as extending eastward as far as the Americas[59] and westward reaching the Middle East and Northern Europe.[60]
After the Battle of Baekchon River, the Ye-Maek forces overseas, unlike those at home, were able to sustain their power through commerce.[61] The Silla wards (Sillabang) and Silla offices (Silla-so) established in China after Baekchon River were Silla wards and Silla offices in name only; in reality they were the power base of the displaced people of Baekje, and Jang Bogo is said to be a representative example of this.[62] On Putuo Island in the Zhoushan Archipelago, known as a representative settlement of the displaced people of Baekje, a famous Avalokitesvara image was erected. That dharma-seeking monks such as the Great Master Uisang of the Unified Silla period were able to travel to Tang China in search of the Buddhist teaching, and that Choe Chi-won won literary renown in Yangzhou, were both connected to the maritime power of the displaced people of Baekje. In China as well, the Tiantai school—which may be called the founding school of Chinese Buddhism—began from the southern maritime Buddhism.
The maritime powers persisted until the Ming founder Zhu Yuanzhang's maritime-prohibition (haijin) policy that expelled the maritime powers.[63] The representative Baekje-remnant maritime power to come to prominence after Jang Bogo was the dynastic founder Wang Geon. Together with Wang Geon, whose birth is like a riddle, the maritime powers connect to Gyeon Hwon and Gung Ye as well. In every case, the fate of the state was decided according to the intentions of the Baekje maritime powers.
The first thing that King Taejo Wang Geon did after unifying the Later Three Kingdoms was to build Gaetaesa in order to break the spirit of the Baekje refugees. Furthermore, Gwangjong, who after Taejo devoted himself to strengthening royal authority, also sought to appease the Baekje forces by erecting the Eunjin Maitreya in Nonsan.[64] Thereafter, the consolation of the Baekje refugees continued in the shamanistic Eunsan Byeolsinje.[65]
As the Joseon period arrived, the Baekje refugee forces, who had lost their means of livelihood through Zhu Yuanzhang's maritime prohibition policy, now turned their eyes beyond China. It is said that the "Wa" that appeared in the late Goryeo period was in fact an indirect reference to these Baekje refugees under the Ming. The Baekje maritime refugees who flowed into the Korean Peninsula also became the basis for Choe Yeong's plan to conquer Liaodong. It is said that Choe Yeong intended to use the strength of the Baekje refugees to conquer Liaodong and distribute it to them, whereas Yi Seong-gye intended to distribute land to the Baekje refugees through domestic land reform.[66] Thereafter, in Joseon, trade was conducted only within the limits permitted by the Ming, so that Joseon became more passive toward trade than Goryeo had been.[67]
The Baekje remnant people who did not flow into the Korean Peninsula turned their eyes to Southeast Asia and became today's overseas Chinese, or else moved to Japan. True to their descent from the merchants of the commercial Shang dynasty, the continental Baekje people became a leading force of reform in Japan as well. Owing to the influence of their traditional faith in a Heavenly God, the Baekje remnant people also became part of the Catholic community of Konishi (Konishi Yukinaga), who came to Korea during the Imjin War, or samurai of the Chōshū domain, which led the Meiji Restoration.[68] The Chōshū domain, being different from the existing regions of Japan, was active in the Meiji Restoration.[69] The Baekje remnant people grew into the Osaka merchants who represent Japan.[70]
Meanwhile, the displaced people of Baekje who remained in China developed, in keeping with their faith in a Heavenly God, into the Wenzhou merchants of the Wenzhou region, famous as a Chinese Christian force. The Wenzhou merchants, a merchant power said to lead the modern Chinese economy, arose against the background of the Wenzhou region, where displaced people of Baekje had intensively lived. The Hakka and the overseas Chinese, and the forces that led the Communist revolution, were likewise maritime forces.
While the Meiji Restoration was in full swing, Dangjin was once again engulfed in war. Dangjin was also a point of engagement where Qing forces entered during the Sino-Japanese War. And in modern history, the October 26 incident occurred on the day of the completion ceremony of the Sapgyocheon estuary bank, once again placing Dangjin at the center of history.
A characteristic of the faith of the Baekje refugees is that, in Buddhist terms, it is reincarnation, but because this is grounded in the idea of God's cycle, the importation of Catholicism was also very rapid.[71] Haemi-eupseong, from which Korea's first priest emerged, also drew attention when the Pope visited it.
The overall development of Buddhism driven by maritime forces extended even to Dangjin. In the case of Dangjin as well, most of the surviving Buddha images are standing Maitreya figures.[72] What has been regarded as Dangjin's culture of practical statecraft for the people's welfare had much that was connected to maritime culture. It is associated with the surviving Ye-Maek culture, the so-called Namjoseon (Southern Joseon) culture. The theory of Ye-Maek culture subsumes the various theories of Biryu Baekje and the like.