Gang Il-Sun
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[edit] Personal Details
Gang Il-Sun (1871-1909), known to his followers as JeungSan SangJeNim. SangJe (in Chinese, Shangti) is the Supreme Ruler of the Universe of religious Taoism (nim is the honorific suffix in Korean), also known as the OkhwangSangJe, the Jade Emperor (Okhwangje) of the Universe. JeungSan is Gang Il-sun’s honorific name (ho), which means Cauldron Mountain. He was born in a small town near the city of Gimje in what was then the Jeolla province of Korea, but which is today known as the North Jeolla Province after the division into North and South Jeolla provinces in 1896.
[edit] His Religion and his Movement
Jeung San Do, like Korean new religions (sinheung jonggyo, literally, newly emerged religions) in general is a syncretism of Buddhism (Bul-gyo), Confucianism (Yu-gyo), Taoism (Do-gyo), certain elements borrowed from Christianity (Gidok-gyo [Catholicism is Cheonju-gyo]), and an underlying Korean shamanism (Musok-Sinang). Far from being a haphazard borrowing, Gang Il-Sun’s syncretism was highly systematic in that only those religious elements that resonated with his millenarian worldview were selected for incorporation into his teachings.
At present there are forty-three JeungSanDo centers (dojeong) in South Korea, three in Japan, seven in the United States, one in Canada, and one in England. There are an estimated 100,000 devout followers in South Korea, where missionary activities are directed primarily towards converting university students. Their national headquarters is in the city of Daejeon not far from the Gimje area of Jeolla Province where Gang Il-sun lived.
In 1860 Sun Choe-jeu, a young scholar from Gyeongju, the former capital of the Silla Dynasty, concerned about the growing influence of the West, the increasing Japanese presence in Joseon, widespread corruption in government and established religion, and abuse of power by the yangban (aristocratic social class), alleged to have had a vision of SangJe (Shang-ti in Chinese), the Ruler of the Universe in religious Taoism. Sun Choe-jeu became the founder of the Donghak (Eastern Learning) movement, the prototype of many subsequent Korean syncretistic new religions. Donghak culminated in the unsuccessful Donghak Rebellion of 1894, which was fueled by a combination of religious fervor centering around the millennial visions of a coming "messiah", and Seoul's high taxes on rice. Central to Sun Choe-jeu’s teachings was a belief in Hu-Cheon GAeByeok, the Great Opening (GAeByeok) of the Later Heaven (Hu-Cheon), the new age paradise of Donghak and later of Gang Il-sun’s millenarian vision.
SangJe allegedly promised Sun Choe-jeu that He would soon incarnate in this world to initiate a New Age. Gang Il-sun was believed by his followers to have been the fulfillment of the Donghak Promise, the incarnation of SangJe prophesied by Sun Choe-jeu. The religion of Gang Il-sun, on whose teachings JeungSanDo is based, arose in large measure from the Donghak movement.
