論文

《人間佛教學報‧藝文》第12期

Nikolas Broy

Postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of East Asian Studies, Leipzig University

妙凡、蔡孟樺主編

The concept of “Humanistic Buddhism” as it came into being in the past century is generally acknowledged as a leading feature of the modern transformation of Buddhism in Chinese societies. It has been understood as an answer to the urgent task of adopting Buddhism to the profound and unprecedented political, social, and economic changes that the Chinese world had to face since the late nineteenth century. Therefore, Humanistic Buddhism may be interpreted as a way to fit into the “national body” of the evolving nation-state in the first half of the twentieth century. Particularly during the 1920s and 1930s, countless Buddhist as well as other temples and monasteries were object to large-scale acts of confiscation and expropriation for the aim of building a new China. The KMT government imagined Buddhism in particular and religion in general to contribute financially, socially, and morally to their project of modernity. On the other side, Humanistic Buddhism may be seen as part of a larger reform movement which has been initiated in the late nineteenth century by such notables as Buddhist layman Yang Wenhui 楊文會 (1837–1911). This development too can be traced back to the encounter of clerics and laymen with modern Western notions of how to define the proper place of religion in both the state and society as well as in the life of the people.

Nikolas Broy, " Modern Buddhism Without Modernity? Zhaijiao (“Vegetarian Sects”) and the Hidden Genealogy of “Humanistic Buddhism” in Late Imperial China, " 《人間佛教學報‧藝文》第12期 (2017): 202-221COPY