The Invention and Vicissitudes of the “Three Great Marvelous Traditions” (san da youliang chuantong 三大优良传统) in Contemporary Chinese Buddhism

Abstract

Abstract Religious life after the Cultural Revolution was more than just a revival of traditions. Much depended on the theoretical framing provided by Buddhist elites, the most prominent of whom became Zhao Puchu (1907–2000). As president of the Buddhist Association of China, he (re-)introduced the so-called renjian fojiao 人间佛教 (Buddhism for a Human Realm) as “guiding thought” and connected it with the “Three Great Marvelous Traditions,” which he identified as “equal weighting of agriculture and chan,” “strong concern for scientific research,” “friendly international exchange.” This article examines the trajectories of this construction and attempts to explore how it has been interpreted and used in official rhetoric and wider discourse over the past four decades, including possible reinterpretations after Zhao’s passing away. In a broader sense, this conceptual history may also raise the question of what the changing connotations of “tradition(s)”—old or new, dead or alive—have become in contemporary China.