The rise and fall of one of the most powerful dynasties in the Korean history, the Silla Dynasty. From the very beginning of the establishment of the kingdom, Silla had conflicts with other two neighboring kingdoms, Koguryo from its north and Paekche, which was located to its west. However, after years of battles between these three kingdoms Silla was successful in conquering other two kingdoms, and emerged three of them under Silla Dynasty. This gave the Korean society sense of nationality for the first time and provided Silla Dynasty massive power over the peninsula. In this essay I will discus the fact that Buddhism played major role in both rise and fall of the Silla Dynasty.

First of all, the main factor that helped Silla Dynasty to gain …show more content…
Commoners were tired of the traditional Hwam Buddhism because of its inaccessibility, as it was written in Chinese characters, local people did not have the time nor the money to learn Chinese so it was only available for the aristocrats. Pure land Buddhism was welcomed by the people of Silla because of it is” a faith which even the unlettered could understand and profess, for it was enough to repeat the chant”. But more importantly it was widely accepted by the society because of the antagonistic attitude that it had towards the traditional authority. Since the new concept of Buddhism emphasized the importance of individual intellectuality over worshiping the king. Therefore, local powerful people emerged into powerful groups and built their own army using their own resources which led the society to …show more content…
For example, members of aristocrat class were trying to break the throne’s power they ended up creating massive rebellion against them and the throne. Furthermore, some nobles who had the economic power and the ambition to rule the kingdom, started creating their own army which led the country to a period of chaos and uncertainty. Under these circumstance, several powerful families started controlling their regions and weakened the government’s authority over the peninsula both politically and economically “this shift in the locus of economic control over the countryside signified a growing erosion of the economic foundation of the central government”. The consequence of these events led the central government’s economy to a devastation, and drove the unified Silla kingdom into its end.
As a conclusion, it is impossible to neglect the importance of the Buddhism while studying both rise and fall of the Silla Dynasty. As it played a major role in unifying people of Silla under the king in the glory days of the dynasty, and in later Silla the new concept of Buddhism created an unbalanced society and led the kingdom to anarchy and