![Sample our Behavioral Sciences journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110801/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Behavioral-Sciences.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Buddhist education in China went through a fervent period of growth and significant changes during the 1920s and 1930s. Focusing on the pedagogical goals and agenda of the Wuchang Buddhist Studies Academy (Wuchang foxueyuan 武昌佛學院), this essay is a study of the convergence of identity and institution in this specific historical context. It begins with an institutional history of the academy, focusing specifically on the years between its founding in 1922 and Taixu’s departure in 1924. Despite its short life, the Wuchang Academy occupies a special place in the imagination of modern Chinese Buddhist identity. In the second part, I argue that the Wuchang Academy marked the emergence of a collective identity, the student-monks, which had a long-lasting impact on the practice of modern Chinese Buddhism.
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my great appreciation to the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. All errors, however, remain my own.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. See also Travagnin, “Concepts and Institutions,” 89. On educational modernization in China, see Bailey, Reform the People; Borthwick, Education and Social Change; Bastid, Educational Reform.
2. The term ‘foxueyuan’ is also translated as ‘Buddhist college,’ ‘Buddhist institute,’ or ‘Buddhist seminary.’ In this essay, I opted for ‘Buddhist studies academy’ to avoid connotations associated with Christian educational institutions. This is not to suggest that Christian education did not have an impact on the conceptualization of modern Buddhist education in China. A comparison between these two types of institution, however, is beyond the scope of this essay.
3. Chen and Deng, Ershi shiji Zhongguo Fojiao, ch. 2; Reichelt, Transformed Abbot, 301; Welch, Buddhist Revival, 111.
4. Given the extensive work on Taixu, a biographical account would be superfluous. See, for example, Goodell, “Taixu’s Creation of Humanistic Buddhism”; Pittman, Toward a Modern Chinese Buddhism, 63–90; Ritzinger, “Anarchy in the Pure Land”; Yinshun, Nianpu.
5. Taixu attributed his failure to his own temperament as well as external circumstances. See Taixu, “Wo de fojiao geming shibai shi,” 63.
6. Taixu, “Sanshi nian lai zhi Zhongguo fojiao,” 50–51.
7. Chen and Deng, Ershi shiji Zhongguo fojiao, 97.
8. Taixu, “Xiandai seng jiaoyu de weiwang,” 90.
9. Taixu, “Dui xueren zhi xunci,” 58.
10. The earliest record that I can find which refers to it as the Wuchang Buddhist Studies Academy is dated to 1924. However, ‘Wuchang’ here seems to refer only to the location of the school. See “Wuchang foxueyuan jiangyi,” 326.
11. “Zhongguo xuesenghui,” 365; Yinshun, Nianpu, 153.
12. Jessup, “The Householder Elite,” 10.
13. Chen and Deng, Ershi shiji Zhongguo fojiao, 129.
14. Jessup, “Householder Elite,” 6.
15. Liu, Jinxiandai jushi foxue yanjiu, 53.
16. Huang’s older brother was a wealthy merchant in Shanghai and Hunan. See Taixu, “Taixu zizhuan,” 226; and Yu, Xiandao Fojiao renwu, 1:45.
17. Jiang, Taixu dashi qianzhuan, 140. On the redemptive society Tongshanshe, see Goossaert and Palmer, Religious Question in Modern China, 100–101 and Wang, “An Exploration.”
18. On the significant role of Wang in the Shanghai social networks, see Kuiyi Shen, “Wang Yiting.” For a biographical account of Wang, see Yu, Xiandai Fojiao renwu, 1:152–54.
19. Yinshun, Nianpu, 97.
20. The complete run of the Jueshe congshu is reprinted in MFQ 6-7 and MFQB 1.
21. Scott, “Conversion by the Book,” 169.
22. Wang Senfu was an affluent textile merchant in Hankou. He supported the 1911 Revolution by lending material support to the revolutionaries. Before he became a committed Buddhist, he was already active in organizing charity work. He was president to the Hankou branch of the Red Cross. See Yu, Xiandai Fojiao renwu, 1:181–82; and Dongchu, Zhongguo fojiao jindaishi, 2:518–19. Hu graduated from Meiji University in economics and politics. He was a leading industrialist in Wuhan. Later, he became a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism and a student of Taixu’s disciple Dayong 大勇. See Yu, Xiandai Fojiao renwu, 1:780–83, and Dongchu, Zhongguo fojiao jindaishi, 2:705–707.
23. Taixu, “foxueyuan zhi yuanshe ji,” 1138.
24. Yinshun, Nianpu, 138.
25. “Foxueyuan zhangcheng,” 305–21.
26. Taixu, “Taixu zizhuan,” 261.
27. Taixu, “Foxueyuan yuandong lueshi,” 65.
28. They included monks Shufang 潄芳, Nengshou 能守, Mo’an 默庵, Huijue 慧覺, Guankong 觀空, Yanding 嚴定, Fazun 法尊, Fafang 法舫, as well as laymen Zhang Zongzai 張宗載 and Ning Dayun 寧達. See Yinshun, Nianpu, 142. A female division of the academy opened in 1924. See Yuan Yuan, “Chinese Buddhist Nuns in the Twentieth Century,” 382.
29. Of the 54 students in the first graduating class, only three were over the age of 30. The rest were in their twenties except for one in his teens. See “Xueren tongxunchu,” 407–12. Robert Culp has observed that a significant proportion of secondary school students between 1912 and 1937 were young adults, who were in their late teens and early twenties, rather than adolescents. Assuming that a good number of the students at Wuchang had received some form of secondary school education before enrolling, I will say that they were ‘young’ by the standard of their time. See Culp, Articulating Citizenship, 25.
30. Taixu, “Taixu zizhuan,” 262.
31. Wang, “Zhang Zongzai,” Lai, “Utopianism Gone Wrong.”
32. Both Taixu and his biographer Yinshun claim that there were more than 60 students who graduated from the first class. But the year book shows that there were only 54. See Taixu, “Taixu zizhuan,” 269; Yinshun, Nianpu, 169; “Xueren tongxunchu,” 407–12.
33. Ibid., 282.
34. There is no evidence that the board ever discussed or voted on Taixu’s 24-year plan. But he did publish it in the Haichaoyin. See “Wo xinjin lixiang zhong zhi foxueyuan,” 131–33.
35. Yinshun, Nianpu, 186.
36. Taixu, “Wo de fojiao geming shibaishi,” 62–63.
37. Gao, Fojiao wenhua, 69–80.
38. Welch, Buddhist Revival, 110–14; Tuttle, Tibetan Buddhists in the Making of Modern China, 194–204.
39. Weifang, “Shiwunian lai zhi sengjiaoyu,” 283.
40. Birnbaum, “Buddhist China at the Century’s Turn,” 134.
41. Welch, Practice, 403. On the rise the Chan lineage in medieval China, see McRae, Seeing through Zen. On the practice of dharma transmission and the succession of abbotship during the Republican period, see Welch, “Dharma Scrolls.”
42. Tanbo, “Xin jiu sengqie de chongtu,” 86, and Xue Yu, Buddhism, War and Nationalism, 27.
43. Dongchu, Zhongguo fojiao jindaishi, 1:311. There is no surviving copies of the journal that I am aware of. It is not included in the MFQ or MFQB. Daxing was one of Taixu’s most important students, and the only one who received a courtesy name from Taixu without having received tonsure from him. He taught at several of Taixu’s academies, and was most famous for founding the journals Xiandai sengqie 現代僧伽 and Xiandai Fojiao 現代佛教. See Yu, Xiandai Fojiao renwu, 1:56–58.
44. “Foxueyuan tongxuehui,” 416.
45. “Wuchang foxueyuan tongxuehui,” 370. The money probably went toward publishing the yearbook.
46. “Chuangkanci,” 336.
47. Jichen, “Jinri Zhongguo zhi sengqie,” 367.
48. Fachuang, “Zhengli fojiao,” 408.
49. Weifang, “Shiwunian lai sengjiaoyu zhi fanxing,” 302.
50. Yinshun, Nianpu, 251.
51. Weifang, “Shiwunian lai sengjiaoyu zhi fanxing,” 304–05.
52. See, for example, Juecheng, “Women ketang li,” 289.
53. Daxing, “Tan xueseng tiandi,” 391.
54. Lai, “Praying for the Republic,” ch. 4.
55. Borchert, “Training Monks or Men.”
56. Lai, “Praying for the Republic,” 172–73.