Hamheo Gihwa

Hamheo Gihwa (涵虛己和, 1376–1433) was the leading philosophical voice of Korean Buddhism in the first generation of the Joseon dynasty, when the new Neo-Confucian state was systematically dismantling Buddhist institutions^[1]. A former Confucian scholar at Seonggyungwan who became a monk under Muhak Jacho — Naong Hyegeun's principal disciple — he turned his classical training to the defense of the dharma in the Hyeonjeong-non (Treatise on Manifesting the Right), a measured response to Confucian polemics that argued for the compatibility of Buddhist liberation with Confucian moral seriousness^[1]. His commentaries on the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment and the Diamond Sutra became standard reading in Korean monasteries and remain among the most subtle works of philosophical Seon ever written, demonstrating that the Korean tradition could continue to think rigorously even under the Joseon state's suppression^[2].