Cheondogyo is a 20th century Korean nationalist religious movement, based on the 19th century Donghak movement founded by Choe Che-U .

Being rooted in Korean Buddhist, Confucian and Daoist beliefs and rituals with some Christian influence, this Korean religion is becoming more and more popular in North and South Korea with the revival of Korean nationalism. Cheondoism arose from the Donghak (東學) revolution that began in 1812 in Joseon.

Overview

Cheondogyo transliterally means Master in Heaven, in which cheon refers to Heaven, do refers to the ways and gyo refers to religion. This is often mistaken for Cheonju-gyo, which is Roman Catholicsm.

Chundo-gyo evolved in the early 1900's from the Donghak peasant liberation movements in southern provinces of Korea. To understand Chondoism, one needs to study the history of Korea in the mid-1800. During this period, drought and floods alternately struck the rice bowls of Korea and caused great famines. Making the matter worse, the Chosen rulers hiked taxes on farm crops and forced more free labor on the starving peasants. Consequently, anti-government and anti-landlord sentiment boiled over into violent uprisings.

In 1812, Hong Kyong-nae, an impoverished scholar-official, led the peasants of Kasan in the northern part of Korea into an armed rebellion and occupied the region for several months. Seoul government dispatched an army and only after a savage scorched-earth campaign, the revolt was put down. In the south, all the way to Chejudo Island, as well as in the north, peasants continued to defy the king in Seoul, the local nobility, and the wealthy landlords.

In 1862, half a century after the peasant rebellion led by Hong Kyong-nae was out down, a group of farmers in Chinju, Kyongsang-do province, rose up against their oppressive provincial officials and the wealthy landowners. This uprising was directly attributable to the exploitation of destitute farmers by Paek Nak-shin, a newly appointed military commander who had jurisdiction over the western half of Kyongsang Province.

Yu Kye-chun organized the farmers in Chinju to riot against Paek Nak-shin and other corrupt officials and wealthy landlords. The rebels killed local government functionaries and set fire to government buildings. The startled Seoul government hurriedly sent an investigator to the scene. On the basis of his findings of fraudulent practices by the local officials, the government hastily revised the land, military and grain lending systems in an effort to eliminate such abuses. From the outset, however, it was unrealistic to expect the ruling class in the central government, which was itself deeply involved in such frauds, to make radical changes. But at least a superficial attempt at reform was made.

The agrarian revolt in Chinju triggered peasant uprisings elsewhere. In Kyongsang-do, Cholla and Ch'ungch'ong provinces, on faraway Chejudo Island in central Korea and in Hamgyong and P'yongan provinces in the north, groups of farmers rose up with arms and attacked government offices in principal towns. Many government officials were executed.

Choe Che-U (崔濟愚, 1824-1864) formulated the ideology of Tonghak (Eastern Learning) in the 1860s to help ease the lot of the farmers suffering from abject poverty and unrest, as well as to restore political and social stability. His ideas rapidly gained acceptance among the peasantry. Choe set his Tonghak themes to music so that illiterate farmers could understand and accept them more readily. His teachings were systematized and compiled as a message of salvation to farmers in distress.

Origins

The foundations of Chondogyo came upon the coming of founding of Donghak (lit. Oriental Culture) in 1860 by Ch'oe Suun . Venerating the god "Haneullim" ("Lord of Heaven"), and holding the belief that man is not created by a supernatural God, but man is instead caused by an innate God. Koreans have believed in Haneullim from ancient times, so Donghak could be seen to be a truly Korean religion, unlike Buddhism or Christianity.

Choe was alarmed by the intrusion of Christianity (Chun-ju-gyo), and the Anglo-French occupation of Beijing. He believed that the best way to counter foreign influence in Korea was to introduce pro-democracy, establish human rights (man-min pyong-dung) and create a paradise on earth (ji-sang chun-guk) - all working together and on their own without foreign influence or help.

Tong-hak was pure ideology, void of any organizational and tactical expertise. Choe believed in improvising as events occurred. He had no practical plans or visions of how one would go about establishing a paradise on earth, let alone what "paradise' meant except that all people were 'equal' (and no Japanese) in this paradise. Nevertheless, Choe's pro-democracy, human rights and nationalism struck chord among the peasant guerrillas and Tonghak spread all across Korea like a prairie fire. Progressive revolutionaries waded in and organized the peasants into a cohesive fighting machine.

Choe's songs were a mixture of traditional elements from Confucianism, Buddhism and Songyo (teachings of Shilla's Hwarang), and to these he added modern humanistic ideas. Exclusionism was another characteristic of his religion, which incorporated an early form of nationalism and rejected alien thought.

The Tonghak Peasant Revolution

Main article: Tonghak Peasant Revolution

The 1894 Peasant War (Nong-min je'n-jaeng) saw the poor farmers rise up against the rich, corrupt, oppressive landlords and the ruling elite. The peasants demanded land distribution, tax reduction, democracy and human rights. Taxes were so high that most farmers were forced to sell their ancestral homesteads to rich landowners at bargain prices. Landlords got richer by selling rice to the Japanese and by buying poor peasants off their land. The rich sent their children to Japan to study and enjoyed things Japanese. It was in this context that the peasants developed intense anti-Japanese and anti-yangban sentiments.

In 1862, the peasants of San-nam and surrounding villages took up arms against the elite. They were brutally butchered by government troops (kwan-gun). In subsequent years, peasants rose up in small groups all across Korea until 1892, when they were united into a single Peasant Guerrilla Army (Tonghak Peasants Army). The peasants worked in the fields during the day, but during the night they armed themselves and raided government offices, and killed rich landlords, traders and foreigners. They confiscated their victims' properties and distributed the loots among the poor.

Choe Che-U was executed in March 1894 at Daegu. After Choe's death, Choe Si-Hyong took over as the leader of the Tonghak movement. He went beyond the religion and appealed to the general peasant populace, who made up the majority of the Korean population. He offered the down-trodden farmers a way to better their lives - Tonghak, which provided its followers a hope for eliminating the yangban class and foreign powers. Under the leadership of Choe Si-Hyong, Tonghak became a legal political organization recognized as such by the government. Choe's followers exceeded 20,000.

In 1898, following the execution of Choe Si-Hyung , the leader of Donghak Son Byong-Hi sought political asylum in Japan. After the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, he returned to Korea and established the Chinbohoe ("progressive society"), a new cultural and reformist movement designed to reverse the declining fortunes of the nation and to create a new society. Through Dong Hak he conducted a nationwide movement that aimed at social improvement through the renovation of old customs and ways of life. Hundreds of thousands of members of Donghak cut their long hair short and initiated the wearing of simple, modest clothing. Non-violent demonstrations for social improvement organised by members of Donghak took place throughout 1904. This coordinated series of activities was known as the Gapjin Reform Movement .

The peasants were not on their own. Progressive-mined yangbans, scholars and nationalists joined the Army. The Army was politically indoctrinated in Tonghak (Eastern Learning). On January 11, 1894, the first major battle of the Army erupted in Go-bu. The rebellion was caused by Cho Pyong-gap, a Chosen government official in charge of Go-bu. Cho Pyong-gap was tyrannical and corrupt - he oppressed the peasants and extorted exorbitant money from his subjects.

The Tonghak rebels routed Cho's government forces and took over the county office, and handed out Cho's properties to the peasants. The rebels took weapons from the government soldiers and marched onto adjacent villages. The armed rebellion spread like a wildfire. The peasant army had few muskets and its arms were mainly bamboo spears and swords. The peasants wore bandanas on their heads and waistbands on their wastes to identify themselves. The peasant army waved yellow flags with the characters "sustain the people and provide for the people" written. Jung Bong-jun (全琫準 ) was the military commander. Jung's father was killed for refusing to pay bribes.

The peasants raided the armory and killed the local officials and rich folks. The war went well for the peasants until March 13, 1894. On this day, the Army was crushed by the government troops led by Lee Yong Tae, who mercilessly butchered captured peasant guerrillas, burned villages, and confiscated peasants properties in Go-bu. The news of Lee's scorched-earth butchery quickly spread to other regions and angry peasants rose up all across the country. Thus began the Peasant War of 1894.

The peasants' marching orders were:

• Do not kill or take peasants' properties
• Protect peasants' rights
• Drive out the Japanese and purify our sacred land
• March to Seoul and clean out the government

The Peasant Army defeated one government garrison after another and closed in on Seoul. The Seoul government asked Japan and China for help. These powers were more than happy to send in their troops. The Peasant Army, although many government troops joined their ranks, was no match for the 'Allied' forces with modern weapons and numerical superiority. The Army abandoned its march to Seoul.

In late June of 1894. pro-Japanese forces hatched a plan to wipe out the Peasant Army in collusion with the Japanese troops stationed in Incheon and Seoul. On October 16, the Peasant Army moved toward Gong-ju for the final battle. It was a trap. The Japanese and the pro-Japanese government troops were waiting for them.

A Japanese scroll records the defeat of the Tonghak Army in the Battle of Seoul. The Japanese had canon and other modern weapons, whereas the Korean peasants were armed with bow-and-arrows, spears, swords, and some flintlocks muskets.

The bitter battle started on October 22, 1894 and lasted till November 10, 1894. The poorly armed peasants stormed the well-entrenched enemies some 40 times but they were beaten back with heavy losses. The remnants fled to various bases. The triumphant Japanese and their lackeys pursued the Army and eventually wiped it out. Jung Bong-jun, the Tonghak commander, was captured in March 1895.

An example of a Donghak Rebel

Kim Gu, one of the most prominent nationalist leaders, was a Tonghak military leader. He was born in 1876, the year the Treaty of Kanghwa-do was signed. He studied the Chinese classics at a sodang [traditional village-level primary school]. At 17, he applied for the Confucian civil service examination but flunked out.

In 1893, 18-year-old Kim Gu joined the Tonghak movement and was appointed the district leader of Palbong. He commanded a Tonghak army regiment in the 1894 Peasants War. His troops stormed the Haeju fort in Hwanghae-do. However, his army was defeated. Gen. Ahn Tae Hoon (father of Ahn Joong Gun who assassinated Ito Hirobumi) of the royal army gave Kim Gu's Tonghak rebels a safe pass, but other government troops ignored Ahn's safe pass and attacked them. Kim Gu managed to escape and went into hiding.

In 1896, Kim Gu killed a Japanese general named Tsuchida at Ch'iha-p'o, who was involved in the murder of the last Chosun Dynasty Queen Min. Kim was arrested and sentenced to death, but escaped and hid out as a Buddhist monk at Magok-sa in Kongju near Pyongyang.

The Righteous Army

The Righteous Army (yi-yong) was formed by Yu In-Sok and other Confucian scholars during the Peasant Wars. Its ranks swelled after the Queen's murder by the Japanese troops and Korean traitors. Under the leadership of Min Chong-sik, Choe Ik-hyon and Sin Tol-sok, the Righteous Army attacked the Japanese army, Japanese merchants and pro-Japan bureaucrats in the Kangwon, Ch'ungch'ong, Cholla and Kyongsang provinces.

Choe Ik-hyon was captured by the Japanese and dragged away to Tsushima Island where he refused to eat the food given by the Japanese army and finally died as a martyr. Sin Tol-sok, an uneducated peasant commanded over 3,000 troops. Among the troops were former government soldiers, poor peasants, fishermen, tiger hunters, miners, merchants, and laborers.

In 1907, the Righteous Army under the command of Yi In-yong massed 10,000 troops to liberate Seoul and defeat the Japanese invaders. The Army came within 12 km of Seoul but could not withstand the Japanese counter-offensive. The Righteous Army was no match for two infantry divisions of 20,000 Japanese soldiers backed by warships moored near Inchon.

The Army retreated from Seoul and the war went on for two more years. Over 17,000 Righteous Army soldiers were killed and more than 37,000 were wounded in combats. Unable to figh the Japanese army head-on, the Righteous Army split into small bands of partisans to carry on the War of Liberation in China, Siberia and the Jangbaik Mountains in Korea. The Japanese troops first quashed the Peasant Army and then disbanded what remained of the government army. Many of the surviving guerrilla and anti-Japanese government troops fled to Manchuria and Siberia and carried on their fight.

Donghak Becomes the Chondogyo Religion

In 1905, Korean nationalists founded Chondogyo based on the themes of Dong-hak teachings popular during the Peasant Wars. The nationalists wanted to stem, by peaceful means, the tide of pro-Japanese sentiments sweeping across Korea. During the waning days of the Chosun (Yi) Dynasty, King Gojong himself embraced Chungdo and promoted it nationwide. The King added Buddhist and Christian rituals and codices to the new religion, which was organized into a formal organizational hierarchy similar to that of Chunju-gyo (Roman Catholism) with Pope, Papal Nuncio, formal ceremonies, etc.

Members of Donghak were severely persecuted by the colonial Japanese government, and so, on December 1, 1905, Son Byong-Hi decided to modernise the religion and usher in an era of openness and transparency in order to legitimise it in the eyes of the Japanese. As a result he officially changed the name of Donghak to Chondogyo ("Heavenly Way").

Chondogyo preaches that there is God and that He resides in each of us - not in Heaven as Christianity and other religions preach. It strives to convert our earthly society into a paradise (Heaven) right here on Earth. It attempts to transform the believers into intelligent moral beings with high social consciousness. In this respect, it is humanistic socialism.

See also

• List of Korea-related topics

Reference

• This article incorporates text from Korea Web Weekly. Used with permission.