Han Yong-un (; August 29, 1879 – June 29, 1944) was a twentieth century Korean Buddhist reformer and

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

. This name was his religious name, given by his meditation instructor in 1905, and Manhae (만해) was his

art name An art name (pseudonym or pen name), also known by its native names ''hào'' (in Mandarin Chinese), ''gō'' (in Japanese), ' (in Korean), and ''tên hiệu'' (in Vietnamese), is a professional name used by artists, poets and writers in the Sinosp ...

; his birth name was Han Yu-cheon.

Life

Manhae was born in Yucheon in

Hongseong Hongseong County () is a county in South Korea, and the capital of South Chungcheong Province. The current governor is Lee Yong-log. The original name of the city is ''Hongju''. Symbols * The flag represents the Joyang Gate along with the west c ...

South Chungcheong Province South Chungcheong Province (), informally called Chungnam, is a Administrative divisions of South Korea, province of South Korea in the Hoseo region in the southwest of the Korean Peninsula. South Chungcheong borders the provinces of Gyeonggi to ...

Joseon Joseon ( ; ; also romanized as ''Chosun''), officially Great Joseon (), was a dynastic kingdom of Korea that existed for 505 years. It was founded by Taejo of Joseon in July 1392 and replaced by the Korean Empire in October 1897. The kingdom w ...

. During his childhood, he studied the

Chinese classics The Chinese classics or canonical texts are the works of Chinese literature authored prior to the establishment of the imperial Qin dynasty in 221 BC. Prominent examples include the Four Books and Five Classics in the Neo-Confucian traditi ...

in a '' seodang''; schools that were widespread during the Joseon period. Prior to being ordained, he was involved in resistance to Japanese influence in the country, which culminated in the Japanese occupation from 1905 to 1945. He lived in seclusion at Ose-am in the

Baekdam Temple Baekdamsa () is a Buddhist temple in Inje County, Gangwon province, South Korea.It was originally built in the 7th century, but due to war and natural disasters, the temple has been rebuilt numerous times since then. The present version was com ...

from 1896. During this period, he studied Buddhist sacred texts and several books of modern philosophy. In 1905 he received the robes of the

Jogye Order The Jogye Order, officially known as the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, (대한불교조계종, 大韓佛敎曹溪宗), is the leading order of traditional Korean Buddhism, with roots dating back 1,200 years to the late Silla period. Around ...

of monks and in 1908 he went to Japan and visited several temples to study Buddhism and Eastern philosophy for six months. In 1919 he was one of the patriot signatories to the

Korean Declaration of Independence The Korean Declaration of Independence () is the statement adopted by the 33 Korean representatives meeting at Taehwagwan, the restaurant located in what is now Insa-dong, Jongno District, Seoul on March 1, 1919, four months after the end of World ...

Work

As a social writer, Manhae called for the reform of

Korean Buddhism Korean Buddhism is distinguished from other forms of Buddhism by its attempt to resolve what its early practitioners saw as inconsistencies within the Mahayana Buddhist traditions that they received from foreign countries. To address this, they ...

. Manhae's poetry dealt with both nationalism and sexual love, often mingling the two. One of his more political collections was ''Nimui Chimmuk'' (Lover's Silence, 님의 침묵), published in 1926. These works revolve around the ideas of equality and freedom and helped inspire the tendencies toward passive resistance and non-violence in the

Korean independence movement The Korean independence movement was a series of diplomatic and militant efforts to liberate Korea from Japanese rule. The movement began around the late 19th or early 20th century, and ended with the surrender of Japan in 1945. As independence a ...

. In 1913, Han Yongun published "The Restoration of Korean Buddhism (''Joseonbulgyo-yusimlon''), which criticized the anachronistic isolationist policy of Joseon Buddhism and its incongruence with the then contemporary reality. The work sent tremors through the intellectual world. In this work, the author promulgated the principle of equality, self-discovery, the potential for Buddhism for safeguarding the world, and progress. His development as an activist and thinker resulted from his adherence to these very principles.Source-attribution, "Han Yong-un" LTI Korea Datasheet available at LTI Korea Library o
online
In 1918, Han published "Whole Mind" (''Yusim''), a work that aimed to enlighten young people. In the following year, he played an important role in the 3.1 Independence movement with Chae Lin, for which he was later imprisoned and served a three-year sentence. During his imprisonment, Han composed "Reasons for Korean Independence" (''Joseondoglib-i-yuseo'') as a response to the official investigation into his political engagement. He was later acquitted in 1922, at which time he began a nationwide lecture tour. The purpose of the tour was to engage and inspire youth, an objective first established in Han's "Whole Mind". In 1924, he became the Chair of the Buddhist youth assembly. The poems published in Han's ''Nim-ui Chimmuk'' had been written at Baekdam Temple in the previous year. This book garnered much attention from literary critics and intellectuals at the time. Despite his many other publications, from Chinese poems to sijos and the poems included in ''Yusim'', and novels such as Dark Wind (''Heukpung''), Regret (''Huhoe''), Misfortune (''Bakmyeong''), this collection remains the poet's most significant and enduring literary achievement. In it, love for his country plainly appears under the guise of longing for the loved one, as in the poem "I Do Not Know". Han's model for such rhapsodic, long-lined expressions of devotion was

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Thakur (; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengalis, Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renai ...

, whose work he knew, and behind Tagore the long Indian tradition of combining mysticism with eroticism. In 2007, he was listed by the Korean Poets' Association among the ten most important modern Korean poets.

Poetry in translation

* Younghill Kang & Frances Keely, ''Meditations of the Lover'', Yonsei University 1970 * Jaihiun Kim, ''Love's Silence and other poems'', Vancouver B.C. 1999 * Francisca Cho, "Everything Yearned For: Manhae's Poems of Love and Longing", Wisdom Publications 2005

References

External links

An article
discussing Manhae and Baekdam Temple
Manhae Memorial Hall
{{DEFAULTSORT:Han, Yong-Un 1879 births 1944 deaths Activists for Korean independence Dongguk University alumni Korean Buddhists 20th-century Korean poets Literature of Korea under Japanese rule Buddhist writers South Korean Buddhist monks 20th-century Korean philosophers People from Hongseong County Korean male poets Cheongju Han clan 20th-century Korean male writers March First Movement people