The Chinese Buddhist Ecology in Post-Mao China: Contours, Types and Dynamics

Abstract

The author delineates the configuration of the Chinese Buddhist ecology in post-Mao China by focusing on three major types of religious actor found in the ecology. She spells out how the interactions between the internal characteristics of religious groups and external structural conditions have shaped the development patterns of groups in each type. First, the dominant Buddhist temples, which enjoy state recognition, have been beset by the hollowing-out process. Second, the type of Buddhist groups with ambiguous legal status has been growing vigorously in the interstices of the current Chinese socio-political structure but faces uncertainties. An array of actors and forms, including self-appointed monks and the mixed form of Buddhism and popular religion, exist on the fringe of institutional Buddhism and constitute the third type. Within this type, the syncretic sects, receiving censure from both the state and the Buddhist establishment, are forced to operate underground.