Hangul and Buddhism
« previous post | next post »
We've seen numerous blockbuster videos from Julesy, but this one is the most explosive ever:
"This might be the most hated film in Korea" (11:55)
Julesy lays it all out in her usual magisterial manner, so I won't repeat what she already has said so clearly in the video, but will just add three items that are relevant to support her case:
1. Aside from King Sejong and his revered Hangul, one of the other most treasured historical relics in Korea is the Haeinsa 해인사 ("Temple of Reflections on a Smooth Sea"), which houses the 81,258 woodblock printing plates of the Korean Buddhist canon. This is the most complete, best preserved, and most reliable Chinese Buddhist canon. The monks who constructed and maintained the repository were architectural and technical geniuses who built a wooden monument that was designed to ensure the conservation of the woodblocks from mold, mildew, moisture, as well as extreme cold and excessive heat. When I visited the temple, I was astonished by all of the ingenious measures the monks took to adjust the ventilation of air through the storage areas. I simply marveled at the perfection of the edifice. In recent decades, contemporary engineers did tests utilizing modern storage facilities and techniques to temporarily house some of the blocks, and it was clear that they did not conserve them as well as the many centuries old depository at Haeinsa.
If the Korean people idolize Hangul, they adore Haeinsa.
2. The foundational phonological science that enabled the creation of Hangul — whoever is credited with the invention — was Indo-Buddhist. See:
Victor H. Mair and Tsu-lin Mei. “The Sanskrit Origins of Recent Style Chinese Prosody.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 51.2 (1991): 375-470 — on the historical development of tonal patterns in traditional Chinese poetry
"Chinese transcriptions of Indic terms in Buddhist translations of the 2nd c. AD" (4/20/20)
Hill, Nathan, Nattier, Jan, Granger, Kelsey, & Kollmeier, Florian. (2020). Chinese transcriptions of Indic terms in the translations of Ān Shìgāo 安世高 and Lokakṣema 支婁迦讖 [Data set]. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3757095
Nathan Hill,“An Indological transcription of Middle Chinese,” Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale, 52 (2023), 40-50.
W. South Coblin. A handbook of Eastern Han sound glosses. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1983.
Axel Schuessler. “The Qièyùn System ‘Divisions’ as the Result of Vowel Warping.” The Chinese Rime Tables. In David P. Branner, ed. (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2006)), pp. 83–96.
Shuheng Zhang and Victor H. Mair, "Between the Eyes and the Ears: Ethnic Perspective on the Development of Philological Traditions, First Millennium AD", Sino-Platonic Papers, 300 (April, 2020), 1-49.
Victor H. Mair, "Buddhism and the Rise of the Written Vernacular in East Asia: The Making of National Languages", Journal of Asian Studies, 53.3 (August, 1994), 707-751 — for me personally, the most important linguistic impact of Buddhism was its legitimization of the written vernacular in China
3. The Confucianist Choson (or Joseon) 조선 Dynasty (1392-1897) was so anti-Buddhist that in essence they outlawed tea, which was closely identified with Buddhism. That's why still today, a hundred years after the collapse of the Choson, true tea ("wisdom [prajñā प्रज्ञा] tea") is making a slow comeback against ersatz tea.
"Taiwanese Twosome: tea and Sino-Korean" (6/25/25)
Victor H. Mair and Erling Hoh, The True History of Tea (London: Thames and Hudson, 2009), especially Appendix C on the linguistics of "tea".
BTW, the most stinging / important sentence Julesy says in her video presentation is the very last one.
—–
P.S.: You probably can't see the swastika In the top left corner of the title frame of the video because it is covered up by Julesy's little circular portrait, but it has nothing to do with Nazism. Rather it signifies Buddhism. For example, if you wonder around street and alleys of Japanese villages and towns, you will see little Buddhist shrines featuring the swastika. In Chinese it is called 卍字, pronounced wànzì in Mandarin, manji in Cantonese, manji in Japanese, manja (만자) in Korean and vạn tự or chữ vạn in Vietnamese. In Balti/Tibetan language it is called yung drung. (source)
In fact, the swastika long predates Buddhism in what is now called "China". See:
Mair, Victor H. 2012. "The Earliest Identifiable Written Chinese Character.” In Archaeology and Language: Indo-European Studies Presented to James P. Mallory, ed. Martin E. Huld, Karlene Jones-Bley, and Dean Miller. JIES Monograph Series No. 60. Washington, D.C.: Institute for the Study of Man. Pp. 265–279.
P.P.S.: I pondered long and hard whether I should title this post as "Buddhism and Hangul" or "Hangul and Buddhism", and whether that made a difference.
Selected readings
- "Korean oralization of Literary Sinitic" (4/23/24) — as explained by Si Nae Park
- "Hangul as alphasyllabary" (5/14/25)
- "Hangul: Joseon subservience to Ming China" (5/14/22)
- Coblin, W. South (2006). A Handbook of ʼPhags-pa Chinese. ABC Dictionary Series. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-3000-7 — 'Phags-pa played a role in the creation of Hangul
- "Happy Hangul Day!" (10/9/23)
- "The pragmatic and innovative Choe Sejin — 15th-16th c. Korean phonetician, translator, and interpreter" (4/21/22)
- "Hangul Day" (10/9/05) — a very nice article by Bill Poser
- "Hangul Day" (10/9/15) — catchy theme song; noteworthy comments
- "Ch'oe Manli, anti-Hangul Confucian scholar" (5/26/25)
- "Devangari" (10/26/20) — a very common mispronunciation, should be "Devanagari"
- "ʼPhags-pa script" — WP
- "Middle Sinitic in Indological Transcription" (10/28/23)
Victor Mair said,
January 16, 2026 @ 8:37 am
Glancing through the whole post again, seeing the photograph of the long, long corridor of storage cabinets for the Buddhist canon at Haeinsa, it reminded me of this: "Buc-ee's bigness" (1/2/26). Sorry for the sacrilege.
Philip Taylor said,
January 16, 2026 @ 9:50 am
"Now wash your mouth out with soap and water", as my late mother was wont to say …
Stephen Goranson said,
January 16, 2026 @ 2:23 pm
Hearing Julesy–hiya–in her informative and provocative presentation on a subject on which I am largely ignorant reminded me of other disputes. For example, of the book on the Indian ruler Shivaji (d. 1680) by James Laine, Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India (OUP, 2003), which reportedly was widely hated for writing, e.g., that he had a harem.
Years ago, to mixed reaction, I suggested that there might be a parallel between ethnic Jewish regard of universal Christianity and ethnic Hindu regard of universal Buddhism. One reaction, from a U Chicago PhD teacher for whom I was then an assistant: interesting. Another reaction from an online gatekeeper: a silly "shower thought."
In the case of Korea, might could the foundation myth disapproval stem in part from resistance towards outside influence by ethnic Chinese Confucianism and yet also resistance against universalist Buddhism?
In any case, as far as I know, a fine national achievement.
John Swindle said,
January 17, 2026 @ 4:00 am
Whereas in China the Yellow Emperor, who among other things invented shirts and trousers, ordered Cangjie to invent writing. Of course that doesn't rule out the possibility that the emperor himself created the Chinese characters and modestly credited Changjie, both of them being mythical and all.
Chris Button said,
January 17, 2026 @ 8:22 am
From p.437 of Ledyard's book: "Nothing would disturb me more, after this study is published, than to discover in a work on the history of writing a statement like the following: 'According to recent investigations, the Korean alphabet was derived from the Mongol 'phags-pa script.' To guard against any such interpretation, let me state, as briefly and exactly as I can, my beliefs on the role of 'phags-pa."
Philip Taylor said,
January 17, 2026 @ 10:18 am
Well, you are clearly intentionally keeping us in suspense, Chris, by not telling us what Gary Ledyard's beliefs were (at the time that he wrote the paper) on the rle of 'phags-pa, and as I could not find the answer from Google I asked ChatGPT. It responded :
(bullet points added by me : I hope that this site's infrastructure respects and retains my indentation, otherwise they will achieve little).
Philip Taylor said,
January 17, 2026 @ 10:20 am
Sadly it didn't (respect and retain my indentation, that is) — please mentally indent the following three bullet points :
David Morris said,
January 17, 2026 @ 3:27 pm
I asked my Korean born, Australian citizen wife whether King Sejong made hangul all by himself or … and before I could complete the question she said "No! He had a group of clever generals" … (or did he get help from other people). (By which I assume she means the Hall of Worthies, not a Buddhist monk.)
Samuel Robert Ramsey said,
January 17, 2026 @ 10:10 pm
My goodness, Victor, how vividly I remember Haeinsa myself! When, as a young American, I first visited Korea way back in the sixties, the country was bare, stripped clear of what once must have been a lush forest cover–I assume that mostly happened in the wake of the Korean War when impoverished people needed firewood, as is so often maintained. But what I saw of the countryside outside of Seoul back then was little more than gray rock and boulders forming rugged hills and mountains. There were no forests to be seen anywhere! I mean, everyone around me at the time described this naked landscape as the soul of Korea. And, judging from what I saw, I believed them. Boulders seemed to be at the very heart of what Koreans loved most about their native land. They told me the bare landscape was a very Korean kind of beauty that only Koreans could truly appreciate. But then, something happened–at least for me. Traveling around in the countryside a bit, I happened upon a small Buddhist temple sitting high on a hillside, alone and away from the road. When I moved in and looked a bit closer, I saw a very different, a softer and more richly colored, kind of Korea: The tiny temple sitting atop the hill was surrounded by swathes of green–a few trees and some patches of grass. Even the roof of the temple was colorful! It was like a sudden rush of fresh air. And then, a few years later, something still more magical happened: That was when I finally visited the fabled Haeinsa. As I neared its gate, the image I had held so long about Korea's natural landscape began to be transformed. Then, when I entered the main gate leading to the temple compound, there, stretched out in front of me, I could see lush green forests covering the entire landscape, all the mountains and valleys as far as the eye could see–dense forests stretched to the horizon! It was the kind of Korean landscape that today, in this era of K-Pop and high-tech prosperity, has become fairly common. Now, that rich green color that surrounds Haeinsa has, to an extent, been replicated here and there over Korea's countryside. The landscape now has shifted toward forests. Zen garden-worthy rocks and boulders may still be very much prized in Korea (in ways Americans seldom appreciate!), but Koreans now seem to think, maybe more than they used to, about green, plots and gardens and hiking through forests–such as in the much-visited Seoraksan on the east coast or, much closer, Bukhansan in Seoul. In contrast, though, when I first visited Korea decades ago, Haeinsa was a lonely oasis, a magical place, a glimpse of heaven that made you gasp when you saw it! And, at the center of this eden, stood the repositories of the treasured and sacred woodblocks of the Buddhist canon. The natural beauty of it all brought me to tears.
David Marjanović said,
January 18, 2026 @ 1:00 pm
…to a question you didn't ask, because it couldn't answer the question you did ask.
What Ledyard figured out is that Sejong took the letters for the phonologically simplest consonants from 'Phags-pa and used them as the foundation to build the consonant system of Hangeul by rules he devised himself (removing strokes to form letters for continuants, adding strokes to form letters for aspirates, basically). The vowels are based on the vowel harmony Middle Korean had and again rules Sejong devised himself. As a result, most letters look very different from anything in 'Phags-pa and are not directly related; still, Hangeul is not a completely original creation, and not just by stimulus diffusion either (i.e. it is not the mere idea of writing that was transmitted, but more).
Scott P. said,
January 18, 2026 @ 1:45 pm
Well, you are clearly intentionally keeping us in suspense, Chris, by not telling us what Gary Ledyard's beliefs were (at the time that he wrote the paper) on the rle of 'phags-pa, and as I could not find the answer from Google I asked ChatGPT.
Since he gave you the exact page number for the citation, why not just look it up in Ledyard's book?
Jonathan Smith said,
January 18, 2026 @ 4:47 pm
In the interest of full(er) credit, FWIW, E. R. Hope reports as follows in "Letter shapes in Korean Önmun and Mongol hPhagspa alphabets" (1957: 150): "In my book, Karlgren's Glottal Stop Initial, paragraphs 159-160, I echoed a suggestion of K. Shiratori and S. Kanazawa […] that the direct inspiration of the Korean Önmun script was the hPhagspa alphabet of the Mongol dynasty […] which is a modification of the Tibetan alphabet. Thereupon Mr. Keith Whinnom (University of Hong Kong) wrote to me to suggest that not only the phonetic structure of the Önmun, but also the very shapes of the consonantal letters were taken from the Tibetan via the hPhagspa script (though, of course, with radical simplifications)." Hope's p. 151 is a chart of Tibetan / hPhagspa / Önmun i.e. Hangul consonant letters that is shall we say fairly persuasive.
Ledyard's whole "[n]othing would disturb me more […]" is depressing as the proffered "disturbing" statement ("the Korean alphabet was derived from the Mongol's ʼPhags-pa script") is a simplification of the proposal but comes much closer to the truth than the nativist alternative. He is just saying "nativists pretty please don't hate me." Sadly you have to let them hate you…
Philip Taylor said,
January 18, 2026 @ 5:48 pm
"Since he gave you the exact page number for the citation, why not just look it up in Ledyard's book ?" — because I don't own a copy (I know that as a fact because I don't own any books by Gaty Ledyard) and because I assumed (wrongly, as I now know) that if Google did not know what text followed that passage, then that passage could not be found on the Internet.
Chris Button said,
January 18, 2026 @ 6:47 pm
Ledyard uses Hope's proposal as the starting point for his discussion on 'phags-pa
The entire book (not just the 'phags-pa stuff) is very interesting and well worth reading
AG said,
January 19, 2026 @ 1:34 am
This is one of the VERY FIRST results that came up when just Googling the name "Gari Ledyard", and it seems by coincidence to be about the exact quotation under discussion.
The excitement of having made that discovery within seconds using my own brain, and then using it to (yes, I know, condesendingly) preaching against AI on here is priceless.
https://www.reddit.com/r/korea/comments/26hwsn/til_about_ledyards_theory_of_consonant_design/
Philip Taylor said,
January 19, 2026 @ 4:27 am
Perhaps at least target your condenscion, AG — I wrote : "as I could not find the answer from Google I asked ChatGPT".
AG said,
January 19, 2026 @ 6:20 am
Yeah, sorry… I also wrote the grammatical mess "using it to … preaching" in my last sentence.
As usual, a superior attitude is naught but a petard with hoisting written all over it
Philip Taylor said,
January 19, 2026 @ 8:01 am
And I in turn apologise for typing "condenscion" where "condescension" was clearly intended and required. My excuse is weak — I had drunk only one of my mandatory start-of-day three cups of coffee when posting …
Samuel Robert Ramsey said,
January 19, 2026 @ 6:13 pm
Yes, Language Log people, Chris Button is absolutely right! Gari Ledyard [yes, that's the correct spelling of his first name] wrote a brilliant dissertation that was published later, in 1998, under the title "The Korean Language Reform of 1446." The publisher was 신구문화사 in Seoul.
Chris writes, "The entire book (not just the 'phags-pa stuff) is very interesting and well worth reading."
That is so very true, Chris! Perhaps even an understatement. In fact, in my humble opinion, it is the best writing to be seen on this topic, as well as one of the best ever about earlier Korea and its language, period.
My own mentor, Professor Lee Ki-Moon of SNU clearly recognized the importance of this work and, with his unrivaled authority, had it published over Gari's own objections.
Gari had objected, because, being the often exasperating perfectionist that he was, he insisted on writing and rewriting, adding and deleting, until finally, after years of this back and forth, Professor Lee became so exhausted by it all he simply had it sent to press –which, I hasten to add, is most fortunate, because, Gari himself might never have released it! (Over his productive lifetime Gari wrote a very large number of brilliant and insightful works, many of which still remain unpublished.) Thus, it was fortunate in spite of typos and the other niggling problems that remain because the volume contains a detailed and very useful index!
So, fellow Koreanists, in case you have never seen this book, I urge you to go out and get your hands on a copy. If not available, well, then order a copy of the original dissertation from University Microfilms. (Is that option still available?)
Let me underscore my belief that Gari Ledyard's dissertation is the finest translation into English of Korea's most important publication, the 訓民正音, the famous text that Sejong wrote for the promulgation of his alphabet. I have seen other translations of the text's passages, presumably all by Koreans (second generation Koreans maybe, and thus native speakers of English), but the difference in quality is stark. Their translations may be correct, perhaps even in idiomatic English, but Gari's translations soar, often becoming poetic.
Oh, and might I add in this context that Gari's command of Classical Chinese (that's what the 訓民正音 was written in after all!) and Chinese literary conventions was virtually unrivaled? (He was Boodberg's prize student at Berkeley, after all, serving as his TA and explainer of the great master's Chinese lessons to students after Boodberg left the lecture hall!)
Finally, let me also add this important note: Gari's explication of the text and its history is also unrivaled. So, I urge you again, all you philologists, linguists, and historians–and lovers of Korea: Get yourself a copy!
David Morris said,
February 6, 2026 @ 3:16 am
Facebook showed me a number of channels summarising Japanese, Korean and Chinese movies and television dramas. One of of these is Splash splash love (Naver TV Cast/MBC 2015) (Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splash_Splash_Love; summary video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrqYIVIJ4Og).
In it, a very ordinary present-day high-school girl travels to the Jo-say-on period (the voiceover’s pronunciation) by means of jumping into a time portal puddle (which is weak even by the standards of Korean time-travel tv dramas) and meets a king who is interested in mathematics, science and developing a writing system for the common people; that is, King Sejong. Her very ordinary present-day high-school knowledge is way in advance of the king and this scholars.
He presents his alphabet to the court and his father-in-law/chief minister argues that (as summarised by the voiceover) “if the new language [later referred to as a ‘writing system’] spreads, young people will dare to develop and share their own thoughts. A scary world without any discipline will come and the world will turn upside down.” The king remains determined, and the rest in history.
Intriguingly, she gives him present-day chocolates which she has carried with her with the letters L-O-V-E. The summary doesn’t say so, but these approximately resemble the hangeul letters ㄴ-ㅇ-ㅅ (upside down) and ㅌ.
From the discussions I have found online, there was no outcry about this series, as it isn’t presented as an historical account, and he is shown to have developed hanguel before he meets her.