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With well over 100 million adherents, Buddhism emerged from
near-annihilation during the Cultural Revolution to become the
largest religion in China today. Despite this, Buddhism's rise has
received relatively little scholarly attention. The present volume,
with contributions by leading scholars in sociology, anthropology,
political science, and religious studies, explores the evolution of
Chinese Buddhism in the post-Mao period with a depth not seen
before in a single study. Chapters critically analyze the effects
of state policies on the evolution of Buddhist institutions; the
challenge of rebuilding temples under the watchful eye of the
state; efforts to rebuild monastic lineages and schools left broken
in the aftermath of Mao's rule; and the development of new lay
Buddhist spaces, both at temple sites and online. Through its
multidisciplinary perspectives, the book provides both an extensive
overview of the social and political conditions under which
Buddhism has grown as well as discussions of the individual
projects of both monastic and lay entrepreneurs who dynamically and
creatively carve out spaces for Buddhist growth in contemporary
Chinese society. As a wide-ranging study that illuminates many
facets of China's Buddhist revival, Buddhism after Mao will be
required reading for scholars of Chinese Buddhism and of Buddhism
and modernity more broadly. Its detailed case studies examining the
intersections among religion, state, and contemporary Chinese
society will be welcomed by sociologists and anthropologists of
China, political scientists focusing on the role of religion in
state formation in Asian societies, and all those interested in the
relationship between religion and social change.
From Comrades to Bodhisattvas is the first book-length study of Han
Chinese Buddhism in post-Mao China. Using an ethnographic approach
supported by over a decade of field research, it provides an
intimate portrait of lay Buddhist practitioners in Beijing who have
recently embraced a religion that they were once socialized to see
as harmful superstition. The book focuses on the lively discourses
and debates that take place among these new practitioners in an
unused courtyard of a Beijing temple. In this non-monastic space,
which shrinks each year as the temple authorities expand their
commercial activities, laypersons gather to distribute and exchange
Buddhist-themed media, listen to the fiery sermons of charismatic
preachers, and seek solutions to personal moral crises. Applying
recent theories in the anthropology of morality and ethics, Gareth
Fisher argues that the practitioners are attracted to the courtyard
as a place where they can find ethical resources to re-make both
themselves and others in a rapidly changing nation that they
believe lacks a coherent moral direction. Spurred on by the lessons
of the preachers and the stories in the media they share, these
courtyard practitioners inventively combine moral elements from
China's recent Maoist past with Buddhist teachings on the workings
of karma and the importance of universal compassion. Their aim is
to articulate a moral antidote to what they see as blind obsession
with consumption and wealth accumulation among twenty-first century
Chinese. Often socially marginalized and side-lined from meaningful
roles in China's new economy, these former communist comrades look
to their new moral roles along a bodhisattva path to rebuild their
self-worth. Each chapter focuses on a central trope in the
courtyard practitioners' projects to form new moral identities. The
Chinese government's restrictions on the spread of religious
teachings in urban areas curtail these practitioners' ability to
insert their moral visions into an emerging public sphere.
Nevertheless, they succeed, at least partially, Fisher argues, in
creating their own discursive space characterized by a morality of
concern for fellow humans and animals and a recognition of the
organizational abilities and pedagogical talents of its members
that are unacknowledged in society at large. Moreover, as the later
chapters of the book discuss, by writing, copying, and distributing
Buddhist-themed materials, the practitioners participate in
creating a religious network of fellow-Buddhists across the
country, thereby forming a counter-cultural community within
contemporary urban China. Highly readable and full of engaging
descriptions of the real lives of practicing lay Buddhists in
contemporary China, From Comrades to Bodhisattvas will interest
specialists in Chinese Buddhism, anthropologists of contemporary
Asia, and all scholars interested in the relationship between
religion and cultural change.
With well over a 100 million adherents, Buddhism emerged from
near-annihilation during the Cultural Revolution to become the
largest religion in China today. Despite this, Buddhism's rise has
received relatively little scholarly attention. The present volume,
with contributions by leading scholars in sociology, anthropology,
political science, and religious studies, explores the evolution of
Chinese Buddhism in the post-Mao period with a depth not seen
before in a single study. Chapters critically analyze the effects
of state policies on the evolution of Buddhist institutions; the
challenge of rebuilding temples under the watchful eye of the
state; efforts to rebuild monastic lineages and schools left broken
in the aftermath of Mao's rule; and the development of new lay
Buddhist spaces, both at temple sites and online. Through its
multidisciplinary perspectives, the book provides both an extensive
overview of the social and political conditions under which
Buddhism has grown as well as discussions of the individual
projects of both monastic and lay entrepreneurs who dynamically and
creatively carve out spaces for Buddhist growth in contemporary
Chinese society. As a wide-ranging study that illuminates many
facets of China's Buddhist revival, Buddhism after Mao will be
required reading for scholars of Chinese Buddhism and of Buddhism
and modernity more broadly. Its detailed case studies examining the
intersections among religion, state, and contemporary Chinese
society will be welcomed by sociologists and anthropologists of
China, political scientists focusing on the role of religion in
state formation in Asian societies, and all those interested in the
relationship between religion and social change.
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