Rebuilding and redefining Chinese Buddhism on Taiwan

 

Marcus Bingenheimer, Taipei

This paper is intended as an overview of the development and current situation of Chinese Buddhism in Taiwan. The first part will outline the historical background. In the second part we will take a closer look at the religious situation in Taiwan during the nineties, especially the characteristics and the impact of the so-called “Four big mountains” as well as some peculiarities in the structure of the Taiwanese Sangha. The aim of the third part is to highlight a few important aspects of Taiwanese Buddhism and Buddhist studies. On the doctrinal level there is the transition from the “reformer monk” Taixu to his student Yinshun. This is in many ways connected to the growth of Buddhist studies on the island. Finally, the CBETA-project serves as an example for the many editorial activities in the Buddhist world on the island. With the help of these examples we will see how Chinese Buddhism, a tradition that has taken many blows during the past century, is currently rebuild and redefined in Taiwan.

 

1. Historical Background

 

Over the last twenty years, Taiwanese scholars of Buddhism have studied the history of Buddhism on Taiwan in some detail.[1] There are three main periods to consider:

1. Buddhism in Taiwan before 1895.

2. Buddhism in Taiwan during the Japanese occupation until 1945.

3. Taiwanese Buddhism since 1945.

Before the Japanese occupation, Buddhism in Taiwan did not differ much from that in other provincial regions of South China. Under the Japanese occupation, the situation became more complex. Buddhist institutions were forced to associate themselves with Japanese sects while finding and maintaining a Chinese Buddhist identity. After 1949 monks from the mainland, who arrived in the wake of Chiang Kai-shek’s retreat to Taiwan, reasserted and reformed Chinese Buddhism in the island. It was, however, only after martial law ended in 1987 that a period of pluralisation led to a fast paced development of Buddhism in Taiwan.

 

1.1 Buddhism in Taiwan before the Japanese occupation

 

During the first period, from the first arrival of Buddhist monks until the Japanese occupation in 1895, Taiwan was part of the Manchu-Chinese empire. Taiwan appeared on the political landscape of Asia only in the 17th century when the Dutch tried to incorporate “Formosa” into their colonial empire. In the wake of the collapse of the Ming dynasty during the mid-seventeenth century, forces loyal to the Ming drove the Dutch out, only to be ousted in turn by the Manchu forces of the Qing dynasty. In the years between 1683 and 1895 Taiwan stayed very much on the periphery of affairs; it was never more than a distant outpost of the Qing empire. Only in 1887 was its status upgraded from prefecture to province.

 

During the Qing dynasty the situation of Buddhism in Taiwan was similar to that of other backwaters in South China. Although the first known monk on the island arrived as early as 1675, the predominant form of Buddhism called zhaijiao (“Vegetarian Teaching”) was largely independent from the Sangha of monks and nuns. Zhaijiao, which comes in several different sects, is a form of Folk-Buddhism that originated in the Ming dynasty with the teaching of Luo Qing (1442-1527), the founder of the so-called luojiao. Scholarship has not yet disentangled the complex history of these sects, each of which is its own amalgam of Buddhism, Daoism, Neo-Confucianism and local folk-religious beliefs.[2] Zhaijiao, which still exists today, was organised by lay-people. The common denominator of its different sects seems to be the adherence to a form of vegetarian diet that also excludes certain vegetables.[3] Objects of worship include both Bodhisattvas and Daoist deities. The places of worship were deliberately not called simiao but zhaitang (“Vegetarian Hall”) to further emphasise their independence from orthodox Buddhism. It is estimated that there were slightly more than hundred zhaitang on the island at the end of the Qing dynasty.[4]