Preserving the Korean Traditional Sacred Geography: Theoretical Implications of Buddhist Religious Mimicry

Abstract

When we look at the religious geography of a Buddhist temple, one cannot help but come to the conclusion of how significantly it is made-up of popular religious ethos and practices. Its analysis reveals a relationship between the indigenous religions and Buddhism that can be described as a "tension between localizing and unlocalizing tendencies" between the opposing "locative" and "utopian" visions of the world. In the early transmission of Buddhism to various neighboring nations of China, Buddhism had to contend with its situation firstly as a foreign religion and secondly as a religion having different and conflicting world views from the local ones. There were real and significant problems that had to be resolved in order to adapt to a different land.