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Based partly on unpublished documents and oral information obtained
from monks who headed major monasteries on mainland China, Holmes
Welch presents a detailed description of the modern practice of
Chinese Buddhism. Focusing on the actual rather than the
theoretical observances of the religion, he gives an exhaustive
account of the monastic system and the style of life of both monk
and layman. His study makes new information available for the
Western reader and calls into question the whole concept of the
moribund state of Chinese Buddhism.
Of all the world's major religions, Chinese Buddhism has probably
experienced the most traumatic modernization. The establishment of
a communist state quickly emerged from the self-contained Manchu
Empire. The consequences are described in this book. Holmes Welch
offers the first detailed account of the careers of recent Buddhist
leaders and of the diverse organization they started. Eighteen
Chinese Buddhist associations are identified as the author traces
the struggle for national leadership. The role of T'ai-hsu, the
leader best known to Western readers but not, it is shown, among
Buddhists, is given a controversial reassessment. After examining
the main features of the revival, Welch puts them into a larger
political framework. In the process, he offers copious evidence
that our picture of Chinese Buddhism has been distorted. What has
been termed a "revival" was actually a secular reorientation. The
author's conclusion is that this secularization, vigorous as it
was, in reality foreshadowed the decline of Chinese Buddhism as a
living religion.
Buddhism under Mao shows what kind of a problem Buddhism presented
to the Chinese Communists and how they solved it. Relying largely
on materials from the Mainland press, Holmes Welch has made what is
probably the most detailed study so far available of the fate of a
world religion in a Communist country. He describes how Buddhist
institutions were controlled, protected, utilized, and suppressed;
and explains why the larger needs of foreign and domestic policy
dictated the Communists' approach to the institutions. Over eighty
photographs illustrate the activities of monks, laymen, and foreign
visitors. Welch worked for over a decade on the trilogy here
completed. The preceding volumes, The Practice of Chinese Buddhism,
1900-1950 and The Buddhist Revival in China, dealt with Buddhism in
the years before the Communist victory. Buddhism under Mao ends
with a discussion of the possibility of the survival of certain
elements of Buddhism in new forms.
Called "a first rate piece of work" by T.S. Eliot, this book offers
a comprehensive discussion of Taoism, one of the world's major
religions, as well as a study of the Tao te ching, the best known
Taoist text and Lao-tzu as a Taoist prototype. "Clarifies a large
area of literature and history that has been a mystery to the West
and makes fascinating reading even for those whose interest is
casual." -The New Yorker
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