<pb n="127"/>To unify the various Buddhist associations an umbrella organisation was first founded in Nanjing in 1947. The Buddhist Association of the Republic of China (BAROC) was to stay the main organisation of Buddhism in Taiwan until the late eighties. It had a de facto monopoly as the only official representative of Buddhism in Taiwan. Crucially, every monk or nun, who wanted to go abroad, had to apply for a travel-permit via the BAROC.

 

It is possible to distinguish roughly between two groups among the mainlanders. On the one side were the more reform-oriented monks who had studied in Taixu’s (1889-1947) seminaries on the mainland.[10]  On the other side stood the majority of more conservative minded clerics who saw no need to reform Chinese Buddhism in general (although very much the Buddhism they found on Taiwan). During a meeting in 1955 the conservatives, who by then had gained the backing of the Nationalist Party, finally took over control of the BAROC.[11] This position they have maintained until today, even though the influence of the BAROC is now negligible.

Although the Nationalist Party regime suppressed all forms of political opposition, it displayed great laissez faire in other areas of society and in general did not interfere in religious activities. This made it possible for all religions, especially Buddhism and Christianity, to establish firm roots in society over the course of fifty years. Taiwan’s economic success led to large donations, and the Buddhist Sangha in Taiwan is extremely wealthy. Reliable figures are not available, but if the construction-boom is any measure, ready money is definitely available. Since the sixties many temples have been built, renovated and enlarged to an extent that is certainly unique in the Buddhist word of the 20th century.[12] The growing wealth of the Sangha also enabled it to get involved in charity work and the active dissemination of the Dharma. During the four decades until 1990, both profile and reputation of the Sangha in society has been raised substantially. More and more monks have acquired <pb n="128"/>higher education, which not only strengthened their position as community leaders, but also put them at par with the Christian missionaries.[13]

 The BAROC was never a very popular organisation and played only a minor role in the actual religious life of Taiwanese Buddhists, but it was successful in its aim to expunge the Japanese influence from the Buddhist Sangha. The crucial questions here were vegetarianism and celibacy. Both principles were irrelevant to Japanese Buddhist priests (who have been allowed to marry since 1876), but were strictly adhered to by the Chinese monks and nuns.[14]

It was also with the help of the BAROC, but mostly by founding their own temples or seminaries, that the monks from the mainland and their Taiwanese disciples over the years restructured and reformed Taiwanese Buddhism towards greater unity and orthodoxy. This was achieved mainly by two means: control over the ordination system and the establishment of seminaries for members of the Sangha.[15]

By virtue of their seniority and reputation, the mainland monks were able to strengthen their Chinese form of Buddhist orthodoxy through Dharma-talks, publications and the able use of mass media. One issue that reoccurred during the fifties and sixties was the worship of non-Buddhist idols in Buddhist temples next to images of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.[16] This practice, which is very common in Chinese Folk-Buddhism, has consequently almost vanished in Taiwan. It is possible to find a Kuan-yin image in a Daoist temple, but very few Buddhist temples in Taiwan would exhibit a figure of, say, the Yellow Emperor.

2. The Institutions of Taiwanese Buddhism in the Nineties

 Before the end of martial law in 1987 social change in Taiwan was largely defined economically. After transition to democratic rule change accelerated in all sectors of society.

In the area of religion this led to greater diversity among religious organisations. In Buddhism the unity that before, at least on the surface, had been maintained by the BAROC gave way to a large number of independent organisations working openly according to their own characteristic views of Buddhism. Taiwanese Buddhism today is characterised by a number of the different traits. The most prominent are the peculiar structure of the Taiwanese Sangha, the existance of large independent organizations, and the growing presence of other Buddhist traditions on the island.

 

2.1 The Structure of the Sangha

 

No single organisation in the history of Chinese Buddhism has ever managed to become an overarching structure to the whole. There is not one institution that spoke for all the different communities and lineages. Coherence has been achieved through different forms of bonding between generations in the Sangha, that in function and terminology were similar to traditional Chinese family relations. In Chinese Buddhism the aspiring nun or monk left their families to enter a new family-like structure. The “hereditary temple” (zisunmiao) was (with exceptions) the basic unity of the structure of the Sangha. [17] In a “hereditary temple” one undergoes the tidu-ordination. Here the master shaves the head of the disciple to mark his or her formal entry into the Sangha. By doing so the novice enters a “temple family” of “master-father” (shifu) and “master-brothers” (shixiong). By accepting the guidance of one’s tidu-master, one establishes a close relationship that involves life-long, mutual responsibilities. The next step to full monkhood is the full ordination (shoujie), ideally a large public event that is explicitly not a temple affair, but involves the whole Sangha. Again, the ordination masters and the participants enter into a formal relationship, this time beyond the local level. Still another way of bonding between Sangha generations is bestowal and inheritance of “Dharma” i.e. the permission to act as the next master. This is especially important for the Chan schools, where the legitimacy of a monk’s inclusion in the lineage often depended on having received the “Dharma” from the master. Though all three forms of bonding are still practised, the individual members of the Sangha are better-educated and financially more independent thereby gaining greater freedom to opt out of these traditional patterns. In practice this means that today individual monks and nuns have much more control over their life than ever before on Taiwan.