Abstract
This chapter analyzes conservative and progressive proposals for Buddhism’s relationship with the new Republican government in early twentieth-century China. The formal reclassification of Buddhism as a religion (zongjiao) brought challenges and opportunities as Buddhism’s role in society was reformulated. Two Buddhist figures, Dixian and Taixu, wrote essays proposing their visions for Buddhism’s relationship with the state. These essays were publicized in Buddhist magazines, part of a larger phenomenon involving vernacular writing, universal education, and the rapid expansion of printed media. Both figures were among the best educated members of the clergy, had large followings, and had meaningful relationships with the highest political leaders. Dixian, the conservative, proposed a model largely consistent with that of the Scripture for Humane Kings. In this model, the ruler’s protection of a virtuous Buddhist monastic order demonstrates the ruler’s benevolence and legitimacy. Taixu, the progressive, reinterpreted this model so that sovereignty lies with the people, whose rational understanding of moral causation ensures their freedom. Their respective visions represent two models for Buddhism’s public engagement with political legitimation under the new government.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Joseph Levenson, Confucian China and its Modern Fate, vol. 2 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968); Peter Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, 1895–1949 (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), Chaps. 1 and 3.
- 2.
Timothy Brook, “Rethinking Syncretism: The Unity of the Three Teachings and Their Joint Worship in Late-Imperial China,” Journal of Chinese Religions 21, 1 (1993), esp. 17, 23–24; Paul Katz, Religion in China and Its Modern Fate (Waltham, Massachusetts: Brandeis University Press, 2014), 17 (Kindle edition). See also Brook, “The Politics of Religion: Late-Imperial Origins of the Regulatory State,” in Ashiwa and Wank, eds., Making Religion, Making the State: The Politics of Religion in Modern China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), 22–42.
- 3.
Brook, “Rethinking Syncretism,” 23.
- 4.
Vincent Goossaert and David Palmer, The Religious Question in Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 73–89.
- 5.
On new policies for religion, see Rebecca Nedostup, Superstitious Regimes: Religion and the Politics of Chinese Modernity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009).
- 6.
Katz, Religion in China, Chap. 2.
- 7.
Holmes Welch, The Buddhist Revival in China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968), 40–43.
- 8.
Raoul Birnbaum, “Buddhist China at the Century’s Turn,” The China Quarterly 174, 1 (June 1, 2003), 433–435, identifies Dixian as conservative, and Taixu as progressive.
- 9.
Hok-lam Chan, Legitimation in Imperial China: Discussions under the Jurchen-Chin Dynasty (1115–1234) (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1984), 22
- 10.
For late imperial variations, see Evelyn Rawski, The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 206–210.
- 11.
Robert Sharf, Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2002), 82–95, 120.
- 12.
Renwang jing 仁王經, T245. The text was composed in China in the fifth century but subsequently attributed Kumārajīva. In the eighth century, the text was revised by Amoghavajra to add esoteric content (T246). For an English translation, see Charles Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom: The Scripture for Humane Kings in the Creation of Chinese Buddhism (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998). Orzech translates the later version.
- 13.
Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom, 107–109.
- 14.
Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom, 215–216.
- 15.
The six perfections—giving, morality, forbearance, effort, concentration and wisdom—represent the most fundamental expression of the Mahayana path to buddhahood.
- 16.
Cited in Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom, 102, following Legge’s translation. Orzech renders “benevolence” as “humaneness.”
- 17.
Sharf, Coming to Terms, 111–112.
- 18.
Renwang jing, 829c18.
- 19.
For discussions of jiaohua, see Prasenjit Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003), 106, and William T. Rowe, Saving the World: Chen Hongmou and Elite Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 406.
- 20.
Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom, 223, 88–89, 279–280.
- 21.
Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom, 272–273.
- 22.
Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom, 119.
- 23.
Chen Bing and Deng Zimei, Ershi shiji Zhongguo Fojiao 二十世紀中國佛教 (Chinese Buddhism in the 20th century; Beijing: Minzu chubanshe, 2000), 387; Welch, Revival, 13, 107–108; Dongchu 東初, Zhongguo fojiao jindai shi 中國佛教近代史 (Taipei: Zhonghua fojiao wenhua guan, 1974), 757–761.
- 24.
Immanuel Hsü, The Rise of Modern China (New York: Oxford, 2000), 480.
- 25.
Dongchu, Zhongguo fojiao jindai shi, 243.
- 26.
Yuan Shikai followed Japanese models for his political program. See Prasenjit Duara, “Knowledge and Power in the Discourse of Modernity: The Campaigns against Popular Religion in Early Twentieth-Century China,” Journal of Asian Studies, 50:1 (Feb 1991), 75. See also Welch, Buddhist Revival, 38–39; Huang Yunxi 黃運喜, Zhongguo Fojiao jindai fa’nan yanjiu, 1898–1937 中國佛教近代法難研究1898–1937 (Taipei: Fajie, 2006), 205–207.
- 27.
Zhongguo fojiao jindai shi, 105.
- 28.
Baojing 寶靜, “Digong lao fashi nianpu” 諦剬老法師年譜 (A chronicle of events in Dixian’s life), in Dixian dashi yiji 諦閑大師遺集, (Taipei: Fotuo jiaoyu jijin hui 佛陀教育基金會, 2003), v. 5, 709.
- 29.
Liang Shih Yi, “Says China Must Be a Monarchy Again,” New York Times, June 4, 1916, http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F1091FFF3E5D1A728DDDAD0894DE405B868DF1D3 (accessed March 12, 2015).
- 30.
Stephen R. Mackinnon, “Liang Shi Yi and the Communications Clique,” Journal of Asian Studies 29, 3 (May 1970): 581–602; Dongchu, Zhongguo fojiao jindai shi, 515–516.
- 31.
Baojing, “Digong lao fashi nianpu,” 701; Welch, Revival, 155.
- 32.
Guo Yanyi, Jindai Zhongguo shigang, 近代中國史綱 (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1980), vol. 1, 487–490. Lu was an important figure in a brief multi-province movement calling for a federal style of government with each region having its own constitution.
- 33.
Dixian, “Fohua jiushi shuo” 佛化救世說 (On Buddhicization and world salvation), MFQB 36:191–192, first published Hongfashe kan 弘化社刊 6. Dixian was listed as the editor in chief of this magazine, but it was the initiative of his disciple Baojing 寶靜 (1899–1941).
- 34.
“Lun fojiao yu guozheng zhi guanxi” 論佛教與國政之關係 (On the relationship between national governance and Buddhism), MFQB 36:6–11, attributed to Qinghuai 清淮. Authorship is discussed below.
- 35.
Dixian, “Fohua jiushi shuo” 191–192.
- 36.
Qinghuai 清淮, “Lun fojiao yu guozheng zhi guanxi” 論佛教與國政之關係, MFQB 36:6–11.
- 37.
Persecutions of Buddhism occurred under Emperor Taiwu in 446, Emperor Wu in 573, and Emperor Wuzong in 845.
- 38.
This is a reference to a passage in the Scripture for Humane Kings. See Renwang jing, 833c; Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom, 272.
- 39.
Henrietta Harrison, The Making of the Republican Citizen: Political Ceremonies and Symbols in China, 1911–1929 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 183–201, discusses the new symbolic regime, entailing new clothing, a new flag, a new national anthem, restrictions against footbinding, the solar calendar over the lunar calendar and its festivals, and attacks on local religion.
- 40.
Scott Pacey, “Taixu, Yogācāra, and the Buddhist Approach to Modernity,” in Transforming Consciousness: Yogācāra Thought in Modern China, ed. John Makeham (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 149–169.
- 41.
Chen and Deng, Ershi shiji Zhongguo Fojiao, 196–217; on Humanistic Buddhism in Taiwan, see Richard Madsen, Democracy’s Dharma: Religious Renaissance and Political Development in Taiwan (University of California Press, 2007).
- 42.
Hankou Fojiao hui, “Puquan gedi Fojiao conglin xueshe jiaohui sian jiangdu Renwang huguo bore poluomiduo jing wei guo wei shijie qiqiu ping’an qi” 普勸各地佛教叢林學社教會寺菴講讀仁王護國般若婆羅密多經為國為世界祇求平安啟, MFQ 153:352–354 (hereafter, “Puquan”), citation from 353; Renwang jing, 826c22–28. See also Gregory Scott, “The Buddhist Nationalism of Dai Jitao,” Journal of Chinese Religions 39 (2011), 67.
- 43.
Universal principle (gongli 剬理) refers to a socially accepted single principle and therefore is not simply rationality but the highest-guiding principle for all. It may be glossed as the just principle for ordering public life. At this time in China, the proper content of gongli was under debate, with such proposals as science, evolution and humanism. For a discussion of the term, see Viren Murthy, “Equality as Reification: Zhang Taiyan’s Yogācāra Reading of Zhuangzi in the Context of Global Modernity,” in Makeham ed., Transforming Consciousness, 126–127. For an extended treatment, see Wang Hui’s chapter entitled “Heavenly Principle/Universal Principle and History,” China from Empire to Nation-State (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014), 61–100.
- 44.
“Puquan,” 353.
- 45.
Scott, “Buddhist Nationalism,” 67.
- 46.
Taixu, Renwang huguo bore boluomiduo jing jianglu 仁王護國般若波羅密多經講錄 (Lectures on the Renwang jing), Qs 6:236–462, 251 (hereafter Renwang jianglu).
- 47.
Taixu, Renwang jianglu, 253–257.
- 48.
Taixu, “Minguo yu Fojiao” 民國與佛教 (The Republic and Buddhism), Qs 22:1242–1252.
- 49.
Harriet Martineau, trans. and ed., The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner: 1893), 1–2.
- 50.
Taixu, “Minguo yu Fojiao,” 1245–1246.
- 51.
Taixu, “Minguo yu Fojiao,” 1247–1248.
- 52.
Taixu, “Minguo yu Fojiao,” 1248.
- 53.
Taixu, “Minguo yu Fojiao,” 1250.
- 54.
Taixu, “Guojiaguan zai yuzhouguan shang de genju” 國家觀在宇宙觀上的根據 (The basis for founding the concept of nation on cosmology), Qs 22:158. On the bureaucracy of spirits, see Stephan Feuchtwang, Popular Religion in China: The Imperial Metaphor (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2001). Zarrow, China in War and Revolution, also provides an excellent summary (58).
- 55.
Taixu, “Minguo yu Fojiao,” 1250.
- 56.
Chiang Kai-shek identified China as being under a period of political tutelage, with the ultimate goal of full democracy. Scholars have recognized that there was a gap between his political theory and popular attitudes. See C. Martin Wilbur, “The Nationalist Revolution: from Canton to Nanking, 1923–28,” 716–717 and Andrew J. Nathan, “A Constitutional Republic: The Peking Government, 1916–28,” 259, in Cambridge History of China, v. 12, ed. Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
- 57.
Taixu, “Minguo yu Fojiao,” 1250–1251.
- 58.
Taixu, “Minguo yu Fojiao,” 1251.
- 59.
For example, “Fofa yuanli yu zuoren” 佛法原理與做人 (Buddhist principles and moral behavior), Qs 3:179; “Lun zhexue” 論哲學 (On philosophy), Qs 21:532.
- 60.
Taixu “Rensheng de ziyou wenti” 人生的自由問題 (The question of freedom in life) Qs 21:666–667, first published 1930.
- 61.
For a summary, see Li Guangliang 李廣良. “Fofa yu xianshi: Taixu dashi Fotuo xianshi zhuyi sixiang lun” 佛法與現實──太虛大師佛陀現實主義思想論 (Taixu’s theory of the Buddha’s realism), Pumen xuebao 普門學報 14 (March 2003), 1–22.
- 62.
Taixu, “Duiyu zhongguo fojiao geming seng de xunci” 對於中國佛教革命僧的訓詞 (Instructions for Chinese Buddhist Revolutionary Clergy), Qs 17:604, first published 1928.
- 63.
Taixu, “Minguo yu Fojiao,” 1251.
- 64.
Taixu, “Minguo yu Fojiao,” 1251.
- 65.
There was, however, a wave of interest in the tantric version of the rite during the 1930s, Scott, “Buddhist Nationalism,” 69.
- 66.
Madsen, Democracy’s Dharma.
- 67.
Daniel A. Bell, China’s New Confucianism, Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008); chapter 5 of Xinzhong Yao, An Introduction to Confucianism (New York: Cambridge University Press 2000).
Abbreviations
- MFQ:
-
Huang Xianian 黃夏年 ed. Minguo Fojiao qikan wenxian jicheng 民國佛教期刊文獻集成 209 vols. Beijing: Quanguo tushuguan 2006
- MFQB:
-
Huang Xianian 黃夏年, ed. Minguo Fojiao qikan wenxian jicheng bubian 民國佛教期刊文獻集成補編, 83 vols. Beijing: Zhongguo shudian, 2008.
- Qs:
-
Yinshun, ed., Taixu dashi quanshu 太虛大師全書 (Collected works of Master Taixu), CD-ROM edition, Xinzhu, Taiwan: Yinshun wenjiao jijinhui 順文教基金會, 2006.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Goodell, E. (2017). Conservative and Progressive Models for Buddhism Under the Republic of China. In: Welter, A., Newmark, J. (eds) Religion, Culture, and the Public Sphere in China and Japan. Religion and Society in Asia Pacific. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2437-5_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2437-5_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-2436-8
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-2437-5
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)