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영어

Temple fraternities in chosun dynasty were organized in order to promote pious faith to Buddhism and infuse Buddhist disciplinary mind into the members, and further to help out temples, what with augmenting temple properties and providing temples with buildings and things necessary to religious ceremonies. That is, the raison detre of the organizations was not lucre per se but religious faith to Buddhism. In this light, Hyangdo(香 徒) in Shila(新羅) dynasty and Bo(寶) and Gyelsa(結社) can be examples of temple fraternities at that time on a broad sense. Suffering strong persecutions throughout Chosun dynasty, Buddhist temples in Korea faced tremendous economic difficulties. The traditional temples revenue based on donation became far cry in Chosun dynasty. These economic difficulties sometimes forced monks to pervert the course of Buddhist principles, involving them in somewhat impious productions and moneymaking activities. However, even such activities were not commonly carried out in temples at that time. That means most temples had to shut down due to the economic difficulties. Therefore, in order to improve the economic situation, temple fraternities were organized. In eighteen and nineteen century, various kinds of temple fraternities came into existence and became prosperous in Korea. In turn, these groups enabled temples to revive their religious and economic influences in the society. It is said that Chosun dynasty was a period of veneration of Confucianism but persecution of Buddhism. Therefore, chances are that Chosun Buddhism is not talked of without mentioning its waning and ailing situation throughout the period. However, looking at todays Korean temples, which show us chosunian　 influences not only in terms of tangible cultural properties, such as paintings and statues, but also intangible ones, such as music, chanting, and ceremonial procedure, I claim that Buddhism in Chosun dynasty steadily developed, at least well enough to exert such influences on todays Korean Buddhism. Through this study, I found out that one of the engines of this development was temple fraternity.