International Journal of Asian Studies, , 2 (2005), pp.

217237 2005 Cambridge University Press

doi:10.1017|S1479591405000100 Printed in the United Kingdom
217
CONCEPT OF THE BORDER: NATIONS, PEOPLES AND
FRONTIERS IN ASIAN HISTORY
the globalization of chinese
buddhism: clergy and devotee
networks in the twentieth century
Yoshiko Ashiwa and David L. Wank
Hitotsubashi University and Sophia University, Japan
E-mail y.ashiwa@srv.cc.hit-u.ac.jp; d-wank@sophia.ac.jp
The article examines the globalization of Chinas Buddhism. Such new modern values as
science and progress, along with competition from Christianity stimulated a modern reform
of Buddhism in China in the early twentieth century that was then carried abroad through
emigration and other transnational movement. This paper examines the ongoing interactions
among Buddhists across difference nation-state spaces that have constituted the spread of
this Buddhism. We show how transnational networks of clergy and devotees are constituted
through afliations of kinship, loyalty and region. These, in turn, faciliate allocations of per-
sonnel, money, and legitimacy that have not only institutionalized Buddhism in Southeast
Asian and North American overseas Chinese communities but also supported its revival in
late twentieth century China.
introduction
Our eld research on a Buddhist temple on Chinas southeast coast in the late 1980s
impressed us with how the temples remarkable revival following decades of state reli-
gious suppression was linked to overseas Chinese Buddhists.
1
They were supporting
Nanputuo Temple in Xiamen , Fujian province by funding the restora-
tion of its compound, lobbying the state for the revival of its academy to educate clergy,
and welcoming graduates to serve in overseas temples. We learned that this was proceed-
ing along paths dug by clerics who had begun emigrating a century earlier, spreading
Buddhism to overseas Chinese communities where it had ourished, even while being
suppressed in China after the founding of the Peoples Republic in 1949.
2
After three
1 For the suppression of Buddhism from 1949 until the Cultural Revolution in 1966 see Welch, 1972. For the
post-Cultural Revolution revivals of Catholicism see Lozada 2001, Madsen 1998; for Protestantism see Hunter
and Chan 1993; for Islam see Gillette 2000, Gladney 1991; and for Daoism see Dean, 1995.
2 MacInnis 1988; Potter 2003.
the globalization of chinese buddhism 218
decades of dormancy, the connections have been reactivated and now play a major role in
the revival of Buddhist institutions in Fujian.
Yet the extant scholarly literature on Buddhism in the twentieth century says little
on this historical interaction between Buddhism in China and overseas. On the one hand,
studies of Buddhism in China mention the foreign travels of several master monks but
focus on Buddhisms development within China and Taiwan.
3
On the other hand, stud-
ies of Buddhism in overseas Chinese communities note the seminal role of master monks
in bringing it from China, but focus on Buddhist practice and institutions in overseas
communities.
4
In short, the historical process by which Buddhism moved abroad, and
the implications of this for Buddhism in China, falls into the cracks between scholarly
elds.
5
This article examines the institutional process of the globalization of Chinese Buddhism.
We focus on three concerns within this broad area of inquiry. One is the kind of networks
through which globalization has proceeded. Another is how this process is affected as it
penetrates into different nation-state spaces. Finally, we consider how the process has been
constituted by ongoing interactions between overseas Chinese communities and mainland
China. Taken together these inquiries shed light on the adaptability of the traditional
network organization of Chinese Buddhism and its transformation through globalization.
We begin by examining the recent emphasis in scholarship on transnational networks
as constituting a global Chinese entity. The second section considers Holmes Welchs
typology of networks that constituted the historically decentralized Chinese Buddhism.
The third section sketches the emergence of modern reform movements in Chinese
Buddhism in the late nineteenth century and the movement of this Buddhism to South-
east Asia and North America. The fourth section examines transnational networks in the
careers of key clergy, highlighting institutional differences between North America and
Southeast Asia, and the ongoing movements of personnel, nances, and legitimacy within
them. The fth section examines the networks of key devotees.
The data draws from several sources. One is a total of two years of eldwork on the
revival of Buddhism in China. Beginning in 1989 we sought to understand how Nanpu-
tuo Temple, in Xiamen city, Fujian province, was recovering from the state suppression
of religion that began in the 1950s and intensied during the Cultural Revolution. Exten-
sive interviews at the temple and in Xiamen with leading clergy and devotees allowed us
to identify temples, clergy, and devotees in Southeast Asia and North America connected
with the temple and Xiamen. We then visited those places to meet and interview lead-
ing clergy and key lay-devotees to learn their personal histories, activities and travels, and
links to China. The places and times of the eldwork are: a total of a year and half in
China, mostly Fujian Province but also in Guangdong province and Beijing in 198990,
1995, 1998, 1999, and 2000, a total of half a year in the United States in 1993, 1994, 1996,
1997, and 200203; a total of a month in Singapore in 1996, 1998 and 1999; and a week in
3 Pittman 2001; Reichelt 1990 [1932]; Welch 1968.
4 Chandler 1998; Wee 1997.
5 While there are publications in Chinese on the activities of clerics and lay-devotees in overseas communities
these consist of hagiographies that are less analysis than primary data (e.g. He 1999, Yu 1997).
219 yoshiko ashiwa and david l. wank
the Philippines in 1999.
6
Another source of data is biographical sketches of Buddhist clergy
and devotees in hagiographies and commemorative volumes of clerics and devotees that
provide insight into the afliations.
7
A third data source is secondary works on overseas
Chinese, which provides insight into the historical context.
chinese globalization through
transnational networks
The recent view among some scholars that networks are the institutional basis of Chinese
globalization rests on the extensive literature on networks in Chinese social contexts.This
scholarship emphasizes the exibility of ties in terms of shifting (ctive) meanings to
enable communication and cooperation between individuals and communities, to maintain
productivity, and to deal with new situations.
8
What this recent scholarship does is to
expand analytically these processes beyond a single nation-state space to encompass or trans-
gress multiple nation-state spaces in what is variously termed Chinese diaspora, Greater
China, Global China, Chinese cultural sphere, or alternative Chinese modernity.
In their concept of modern Chinese transnationalism Ong and Nonini write:. . .
networks interest us precisely because of their informality and their related capacity to
span space and to connect groups who occupy different positions in national spaces.
9

McKeown sees Chinese diasporas as constituted by historically accumulated networks of
shared symbols, behaviors, and communication across national boundaries that can mobilize
people towards ends and change over time.
10
And in his study of the globalization of Chinese
voluntary organizations, Liu examines how traditional common name associations are
being redirected towards the transnational activities of overseas Chinese entrepreneurs in
late twentieth century capitalism.
11
Among the several recent studies of Chinese religion that emphasize transnational
networks,
12
Kuahs concept of transnational cultural network is especially relevant for
6 We have received various funding for this research. During 19891990 Ashiwa had a travel grant from Kobe
Yamate Womens College to teach anthropology at Xiamen University. During our eldwork in the U.S.
in 1993 and 1994, Ashiwa was a Nitobe Fellow at Harvard University while Wank was a Kukin Fellow at
the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. Fieldwork in China and abroad from19982000
was funded by an International Peace and Cooperation Research and Writing Grant from the John and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Fieldwork was also conducted in the U.S. in 2003 while Ashiwa was a Senior
Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University. Documentary collection and interview transcription was
supported by two Scientic Grant-in-Aid research awards from the Ministry of Education, Sports, Science
and Culture of Japan.
7 Commemorative volumes are published upon the death of master monks and contain names of ordina-
tion masters, temples resided at and positions assumed, and signicant dharma transmissions. Similar
information is also found in hagiographies.
8 Hamilton 1996; Lever-Tracy, Ip, and Tracy 1996; Smart and Smart 1998; Wank 1999; Wong 1988.
9 Nonini and Ong 1997, p. 22.
10 McKeown 1999, p. 329. See also Lever-Tracy, Ip, and Tracy 1996; Ong 1999; Shambaugh 1995; Yang 2003.
11 Liu 1998.
12 Guest 2003, Yang 1999. See also the special issue of the European Journal of East Asian Studies special issue
on transnationalism in Chinese religions (Huang 2003). The issue also contains two articles on Buddhism,
focusing on the Compassion Relief Foundation based in Taiwan (Huang 2003, Laliberte 2003). While both
use the concept of transnationalism neither employs the concept of networks to embed the transnational
processes in social relations.
the globalization of chinese buddhism 220
our study.
13
In her ethnography of the reconstruction of an ancestral temple in a Fujian
village by a lineage whose members also reside in Singapore, she examines how percep-
tions and norms of kinship and person enable coordinated decision-making among these
far-ung actors. Several aspects of her study are similar to our analysis of the globaliza-
tion of Buddhism. First, the transnational networks are cultural perceptions and historical
memories that affect decisions regarding movements of resources in the networks. Second,
the networks are continuous interactions of information, power, and resources between
China and overseas Chinese. Finally, the networks are constituted by overlapping person-
al and institutional ties. Similar network dynamics can be observed in the decentralized
organization of Buddhism.
the network organization of chinese
buddhism
In a classic account, Holmes Welch described the historical organization of Chinese
Buddhism as a diffuse network system held together by norms of afliation. Through-
out Chinese history, there was no single organization to which all Buddhist monks and
devotees belonged. The various Buddhist groups were localized. . . . What held Buddhists
together was a series of networks of afliation, superimposed haphazardly upon each
other.
14
Welch draws attention to how the authority for decisions and cooperation
between clerics and temples derived from the norms and expectations that resided in rela-
tions among clergy to each other and to specic temples. These afliations constituted an
especially important avenue for the reproduction and expansion of the Chinese Buddhism
through the reconstruction of existing, and construction of new, temples and in ensuring
there was clergy to staff them. They also constituted a key avenue to draw in nancial
resources from devotees to support these endeavors.
One afliation is religious kinship. Tonsure kin are clerics whose heads were shaved
by the same master, inducing them to feel reciprocal rights and obligations almost
like those between brothers by blood. If their common master was several generations
removed, they still regarded one another as kinsmen.
15
Somewhat weaker kinship ties
are created by common generation names from the same descent line (gatha). These could
be created opportunistically when a cleric transmitted the dharma of his or her clan or
temple to another cleric, giving them a common descent line. Such transmissions could
signify anything from a simple courtesy to the designation of a successor abbot. Kinship
could also be produced by the dharma of a monastery. This happens when clerics with
shared experiences of ordination, study, and ofce-holding in the same monastery come to
perceive themselves as kin through their mutual afliation. Perceptions of kin could also
be produced among monks who specialized in the same text and studied it together and
cooperated to expound it.
The second afliation is loyalty to a charismatic monk. Master monks attracted bands of
followers who, while not sharing religious kinship with the master, had studied or meditated
13 Kuah 2000.
14 Welch 1967, p. 403.
15 Welch 1967, p. 403.
221 yoshiko ashiwa and david l. wank
or held ofce under him, or simply revered him. Welch notes that these afliations also
encompassed laypersons. A layperson receiving the Refuges from a monk receives the same
generational names as the monks tonsured disciples and so they are considered members
of the same family. In this family, horizontal ties between monks and devotees were weak:
. . . if two laymen had received the Refuges from Hs-yn [Xuyun], it had little effect on
their relationship with each other or with the monks whose heads he had shaved. On the
other hand, they might be both intensely devoted to him and derive a deep satisfaction
from being the followers of such an eminent monk.
16
These vertical ties to a master are
strong and can be mobilized by him. An eminent master such as Xuyun had thousands of
followers: . . . if he wanted to restore a monastery, the money was soon forthcoming from
the laity. When the time came to staff it, he had the loyal monks with which to do it.
17

The third afliation is regionalism as seen in cliques of clerics from the same dialect
region, most notably northern Jiangsu and southern Fujian provinces, both of which pro-
duced large numbers of clerics. Monks from the same region tended to appoint each other
to administrative ofces and could dominate the temples of a specic locale. Welch notes
how this regionalism was a powerful force, both cohesive and divisive.
18
The divisiveness
stemmed from jealousies that it created by its distinction between insiders and outsiders.
But it was also cohesive because temples in the same locale faced similar problems, and
so the regional ties facilitated cooperation in administration, welfare work and subsidies
from rich to poor temples.
The haphazard character of Welchs system is due to the intermingling of personal
and institutional networks, which impart an historical contingency and exibility to the
system. All these afliations between lay people and monasteries were informal,
arising and disappearing as circumstances changed.
19
Trust was further enhanced by the
overlapping of personal and institutional components of relations. Cooperation between
temples often stemmed from kinship among clerics. For example, Welch describes how the
famous Jinshan Temple took responsibility for collecting land rents for the neighbor-
ing Wofu Temple and also gave it subsidies when necessary. The reason for this was that an
earlier abbot of Chin Shan had been a tonsure heir of Wo-fu, namely Chan-ching, who
was Chin Shans abbot in the late Ching Dynasty. In deference to his memory Chin Shan
was still helping the Wo-fu Ssu [Temple] in the 1930s.
20
Loose coupling among temples
further enhanced exibility. Even as they cooperated they were also independent. Relations
were neither legal nor hierarchically enforced but were informal understandings between
independent entities that allowed for rapid realignments to reect changing conditions.
The systems expansive possibilities derived from the afliations of clerics. The strong-
est ties tonsure kinship are only found among clerics, while regional afliations are
also conned to clerics. As noted above dharma ties between clerics and devotees who are
loyal to the same master are considered to be weak. Welchs geodesic dome metaphor for
16 Welch 1967, p. 404.
17 Welch 1967, p. 404.
18 Welch 1967, p. 405.
19 Welch 1967, p. 407.
20 Welch 1967, p. 406.
the globalization of chinese buddhism 222
Chinese Buddhism expresses this. The domes nodes consist of monks and temples, and the
sticks between them are the afliations that linked them, while from the nodes of this
dome . . . hung families of lay people, each of which might be connected with a particular
monastery. . . .
21
This image suggests that the afliations among the clergy constituted the
systems structure and expansion with the lay-devotees providing support at specic
sites.
Conceptually speaking, the typology just described fully accords with a standard
sociological denition of networks as any kind of socially meaningful tie. This focuses
analysis on how the relations are arranged, how the behavior of individuals depends
on their location in this arrangement, and how the qualities of the individuals inuence
the arrangement
22
so as to understand the allocations of authority and resources among
persons and locales.
the modernization of buddhism: from china
to the diaspora
The Buddhist reform movement that arose in China in the late nineteenth century was
both a response to decimation by the Taiping Rebellion and to the increasing presence of
new values of science, rationality, and progress that were coming to China from the mid-
nineteenth century in the context of imperialism and capitalism. New scientic ideas of
thinking saw religion as incompatible with modernity, while Buddhism was denounced
for a passive and detached attitude that was said to be a cause of Chinas backwardness.
Buddhism was also challenged by Christian missionaries who attracted followers through
outreach activities and their impressive command of their religious doctrines. In this
context various renewal movements emerged among Buddhists.
Some renewal movements took a conservative approach that emphasized personal cul-
tivation, textual study, and retreat from the world as practiced by such masters as Hongyi
, Yuanying , Xuyun , and Tanxu .
23
Another was the progressive approach
associated with Taixu . Inuenced by scientism and Christianity, he sought to ratio-
nalize Buddhist theology and encouraged involvement in this world through charity and
relations with political authorities. In general, the progressive approach thrived in coastal
cities, especially in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Fujian provinces where contacts with the West
and Japan were more extensive, while the conservative approach was often associated with
more remote inland temples and those in North China.
All approaches emphasized Buddhist education and many Buddhist seminaries (
) were established to train clergy. There were various intentions behind this. One was
to preempt state efforts beginning in the twilight of the Qing dynasty to appropriate
monastic lands for public schools. Another was the recognition of the need to prosely-
tize. Seminary-educated monks began giving dharma talks to lay devotees, usually on the
merits of a particular sutra. Proselytizing became an increasingly important part of a
monastic career: where previously monks had traveled abroad to obtain sutras, they now
21 Welch 1967, p. 407.
22 Lienhardt 1977, xiii. See also Granovetter 1985.
23 Birnbaum 2003, p. 433.
223 yoshiko ashiwa and david l. wank
often traveled to spread the dharma. As for Taixu, he founded academies to spearhead the
institutional modernization of Buddhism through classroom teaching and a curriculum
that included secular topics.
Lay devotees played a major role in this revival movement. Members of the scholar-
ofcial elite in the late Qing dynasty, such as Yang Wenhui , played major roles in
developing the basic tenets and practices of the modern reform movement while, in the
Republican era, it was fashionable for ofcials to be interested in Buddhism. Important
support also came from the rising merchant classes in the port cities that were sites of
rapid capital accumulation between the domestic and international economies. Many of
these businesspersons and their offspring were quite cosmopolitan and well educated.
With the heightened emphasis on scriptural knowledge in the reform movement, they
could play a greater role in propagating Buddhism. Such participation was especially
pronounced in the modernist reform movement where lay devotees also administered
new associations, performed some rituals alongside clerics, and taught in Buddhist
seminaries.
24
Growth of the Chinese Diaspora
As Chinese began emigrating in ever greater numbers from the second half of the nine-
teenth century, Buddhist monks soon followed, rst to Southeast Asia and then to North
America. Support for their travels and activities came from the growing numbers and
wealth of overseas Chinese. Buddhist temples with professional clergy and an emphasis
on scriptural knowledge and personal cultivation began to appear alongside the Guandi
shrines, divination sites, and ancestral halls that had long existed in overseas Chinese
communities. The growth of this Buddhism in the diaspora was stimulated by ongoing
interactions between overseas Chinese communities and China through movements of
ideas, people, and money.
The movement of Buddhism to Southeast Asia began in the late nineteenth century
with the growth of an increasingly wealthy Chinese urban population in the European
colonies. This population, which hailed mostly from the Min dialect areas of southern
Fujian province, was well informed of intellectual and cultural developments in China. In
particular the business elites moved back and forth between the diaspora and port cities
in China, exposing them to the same ideas that the rising business classes were developing
through contact with western business practices, missionaries and missionary education
and various reformist movements.
Intellectual currents in China were also quickly communicated to the overseas Chinese
in Southeast Asia through the many Chinese bookstores, newspapers, and printing presses;
reformist and revolutionary books popular in China in the early twentieth century were
immediately available in urban centers of Southeast Asia. Also, many prominent Chinese
visited Southeast Asia and gave public lectures and talks, including such nationally prominent
intellectual and political gures as Kang Youwei and Liang Qiqiao , as well as
Sun Yatsen (himself an overseas Chinese from Hawaii) and many of the prominent
Buddhist monks of the period including Taixu. Therefore many of the diaspora elite
24 Taixu also tried to reduce the stigma of former monks who had returned to lay life by encouraging their
continued interest in Buddhism.
the globalization of chinese buddhism 224
embraced perceptions found among Chinas coastal business and political elites regarding
Chinas backwardness and the need for modernization and some founded movements that
were similar to those in China for educating women, removing superstition from Chinese
folk-religion, and so on.
Successive Chinese states were also a force in this dissemination of modern ideas in the
diaspora. Beginning in 1877 in Singapore, the Qing state established forty-six consulates
abroad and, in addition to recruiting overseas businessmen to support Chinas economic
development, also promoted such modernizing reforms as the setting-up of Chambers of
Commerce in overseas Chinese communities, and modern schools to give instruction in
the Chinese language.
25
In the 1930s and 1940s, the Republican government sponsored
visits by major gures in China to other parts of Asia to stimulate overseas Chinese sup-
port for its war against Japan. In 19391940 it even sponsored a half-year tour by Taixu
to Malaya, as well as Burma, Ceylon and India, although accounts of the trip suggest that
Taixu propagated Buddhism rather than discussed the war effort.
26
The Movement of Buddhism to Southeast Asia and North America
The rst recorded instance of a Chinese monk moving to Southeast Asia was Miaolian
, abbot of Gushan Temple in Fuzhou who was invited by wealthy devotees
in Penang. He took up residence in a small temple for burning incense but found it too
noisy for religious practice and so his patrons bought land in a suburb for the construction
of a temple. Funds were raised from overseas Chinese in more than a hundred cities around
the world, and in 1904 the Jile Temple was opened. Miaolian, then eighty-one years
old, set off to Beijing for imperial approval. He successfully returned with two horizontal
boards (), one with Guangxu Emperors inscription Daxiung Baodian and the other
with the inscription Haitian Foguo by the Dowager Empress.
27
Following this
successful enterprise, other clergy followed Miaolian and the ow increased in the 1930s
and 1940s as they left the chaos of the Japanese invasion and civil war and then the new
communist regime for the more hospitable overseas Chinese communities. This inux of
personnel, combined with the economic boom and growth of an educated middle class in
the second half of the twentieth century led to much temple construction, and by the end
of the twentieth century there were 1,500 Buddhist temples in Malaysia and Singapore as
well as numerous associations and charities.
28
The movement of reform Buddhism to North America occurred over half a century later
owing to the restrictive immigration regimes instituted in response to pressure from labor
unions alarmed by competition for jobs from Chinese immigrant laborers. From 18821942
in the United States (from 1898 in Hawaii following its annexation) and from 18851947
in Canada, immigration from China practically halted. Furthermore the possibility of citi-
zenship to those already in North America was denied while complex re-entry procedures
sharply reduced travel back to China. The result was that the decades of extended and
25 Zhuang 1999, p. 99.
26 Pittman 2001, pp. 13943; Welch 1968, p. 3.
27 Yu 1997, pp. 1728.
28 Yu 1997, p. 4.
225 yoshiko ashiwa and david l. wank
rich cultural contact between the diaspora and China in Southeast Asia up until the mid-
twentieth century did not occur in North America, and Chinatowns dwindled in size and
Chinese mixed in with the general population. The exception was Hawaii where a large
percentage of the population was of Chinese origin, many from the areas surrounding
Hong Kong, and more ongoing links were maintained to China through Hong Kong.
The ban on Chinese immigration to the United States was repealed in 1943. At rst
only a limited immigration of members of the Nationalist political and business elite was
permitted.
29
Unlike the earlier migrants, who had left Guangdong province for economic
gain, these new migrants were wealthy and well-educated political refugees from Shanghai
and neighboring Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. Many had spent several years as refugees
in Hong Kong or Taiwan before entering the United States and Canada. From 1965, follow-
ing an overhaul of United States immigration procedures, many Chinese began coming
to the U.S. as immigrants or on student visas. In the 1980s, following the United States
establishment of ties with the Peoples Republic of China, Chinese began coming from the
mainland, a mix of students and undocumented laborers, resulting in a diverse Chinese
community in the United States.
The rst monk to go North America was Zhiding who went in 1957 at the
invitation of Chinese in Hawaii. Ten years later he opened the Hsu Yun Temple in
Honolulu, heralded in the worldwide overseas Chinese press as the rst real Chinese
temple in North America.
30
A trickle of other monks soon followed, and they established
Buddhist activities on the U.S. mainland and in Canada. The refugees of the Nationalist
ofcial-business elite were prominent supporters of these monks. As immigration from
Taiwan and then mainland China increased, the number of Buddhist temples has grown,
with hundreds by the late twentieth century, including 26 alone in lower Manhattans
Chinatown.
31
In sum, Buddhism moved overseas through a process of interaction with China that
occurred differently in various regions. In Southeast Asia the interaction was continuous,
with clergy and devotees all part of the same migration outow stemming largely from
Fujian Province. With regard to North America, the interruption of migration links between
China and North America meant that when migration resumed after more than half a
century, the new migrants were no longer from the same region as the original Cantonese
migrants. Among the key clergy and devotees who institutionalized Buddhism in North
America, there was no numerically dominant regional group. This is apparent in the
distribution of the ancestral regions of prominent monks and devotees overseas as seen
in the place of birth recorded in entries in the Annals of Overseas Propagators of Chinese
Buddhism. Of the forty-eight clergy and devotees in the Philippines, Singapore and Malay-
sia, fully thirty-four (71%) come from Fujian province and they are almost entirely from
the Min dialect area in the southern half.
32
By contrast, of the twenty-nine persons in the
29 Canada repudiated its exclusionary immigration policies in 1947. It initially allowed only limited
immigration for family members of Chinese with Canadian citizenship.
30 Yu 1997, pp. 33448.
31 Guest 2002.
32 The distribution by province is Fujian 34, Jiangsu 8, Guangdong 2, Liaoning 1, Zhejiang 1, Anhui 1,
Taiwan 1.
the globalization of chinese buddhism 226
United States and Canada, one third (ten persons) are from Jiangsu province with the
remaining distributed among the others, and only one from Fujian province.
33
This differ-
ence in ancestral region of origin underscores the very different historical processes and
interactions between diasporic regions and China.
clergy networks
Throughout the twentieth the clergy have been a key force in the expansion of Buddhism
around the world and its institutionalization in locales. This section will examine rst
the careers of key monks who brought Buddhism to each diasporic region, and then the
dynamics of expansion across nation-state borders and institutionalization in locales that
proceeded in the networks.
Clergy Careers and Networks
Southeast Asia: Zhuandao was the leader of Chinese Buddhists in Southeast Asia in the
rst half of the twentieth century.
34
He was born in Southern Fujians Nanan county
in 1872 and ordained in Nanshan Temple at age eighteen. A seven-year stay at Tian-
tong Temple acquainted him with such famous monks as Xuyun, Yuanying and
Huiquan . He then stayed at Nanputuo Temple until invited by Xuyun to Beijing to work
on his library. He returned to Nanputuo Temple and when it decided in 1913 to establish
the Sangha Academy, Zhuandao went to Singapore to seek funds from the overseas Chinese
community. He was enthusiastically welcomed by overseas Chinese, who also raised funds
to construct a temple for him. Putuo Temple was completed in the 1920s and is still
one of Singapores most prominent temple. When the master monk Yuanying asked him to
help reconstruct Kaiyuan Temple in Quanzhou Zhuandao raised money from
Singapore Buddhists and went to Fujian to assist. Much of his subsequent career involved
traveling back and forth between Southern Fujian and Singapore. In Fujian he further used
funds from overseas Chinese to restore Nanshan Temple, found the Nanshan Buddhist
Propagation School , restore Chongfu Temple in Zhanghou and
serve as abbot there, and establish the Propagate Buddhism among the Populace School
() to educate orphans. In Singapore he worked with lay devotees to establish
and chair such associations as the Buddhist Lay Devotee Association () and the
China Buddhist Association, to propagate Chinese reading ability and knowledge of Chinese
culture among overseas Chinese, and to support orphanages and old persons homes.
Hongquan succeeded Zhuandao as Malayas leading monk from the end of World
War II until his death in 1991.
35
He was born in 1907 in Fujians Jinjiang county
and was tonsured by Huiquan at the age of thirteen in Quanzhou citys Chengtian Temple
. When Nanputuo Temple became ecumenical in 1924 and Huiquan was selected
as head monk, Hongquan went with him. In 1927 Taixu came to Nanputuo Temple and
33 The distribution by province is Jiangsu 10, Anhui 4, Guangdong 4, Hebei 3, Jilin 2, Fujian 1, Henan 1, Jiangxi
1, Liaoning 1, Shanxi 1, Zhejiang 1.
34 Yu 1997, pp. 2428.
35 Yu 1997, pp. 8186.
227 yoshiko ashiwa and david l. wank
Hongquan became his follower. When Huiquan established Wanshilian Temple
to serve as headquarters of the Buddhist Studies Research Society he
appointed Hongquan as prior. When Japan invaded China in 1937 Huiquan and Hongquan
went to Malaya and Indonesia and then to Singapore. There Hongquan helped Zhuan-
dao build Pujue Temple and Zhuandao gave him a dharma transmission to make them
dharma brothers. In 1942 Huiquan and Hongquan went to Penang to build Miaoxianglin
Temple with funds donated by overseas Chinese. With Huiquans death,
Hongquan became its head monk and then, in 1943, abbot of Pujue Temple upon Zhuan-
daos death. During Hongquans long tenure he expanded the Pujue Temple, established
and chaired the Singapore Buddhist Association , the Singapore Inter-
Religious organization , and schools and free medical clinics, and pub-
lished the journal Nanyang Buddhist . He also hosted major religious and political
gures and was honored in 1987 by Thailands King as Supreme Chinese Monk with
equal rank to Thailands Supreme Patriarch of Monks Community. With the relaxation
of Chinas policy towards religion after 1979, Hongquan made almost a dozen trips to
China to help restore the temples in southern Fujian province associated with his master
Huiquan, preside at ceremonies, and lobby Chinas religious establishment for the return
of temples and the restarting of the South Fujian Buddhist Academy.
The next monk whom we will consider is Xingyuan , the rst monk to proselytize
in the Philippines.
36
He was born in 1889 in Nanan county and ordained at Nanputuo
Temple by Xican . His ordination brother was Zhuanfeng who ecumenicized
Nanputuo Temple in 1924 and established the South Fujian Buddhist Academy ,
while his classmates included Huiquan as well as many who would become prominent
in the diaspora. He stayed at Tiantong Temple when Eight Fingers, one of Taixus rst
teachers, was still abbot. He then returned to Nanputuo Temple in 1919 and lectured,
becoming known, along with Huiquan and Yuanying, as one of the three great masters
from Fujian. He then went to Nanshan Temple in Zhangzhou and established the Buddhist
Research Society , becoming head of the Eastern Ethics Buddhist Studies Research
Society at Chengtian Temple, and then the temples prior. In 1927 he
went to Singapore and stayed in Longshan Temple and Putuo Temple. Seven months
later he was appointed prior of Nanputuo Temple in Xiamen and, in this capacity, hosted
Taixu and Hongyi and received a dharma transmission from Hongyi. In 1936 he was elected
abbot of Nanputuo Temple. That same year the Philippine Buddhist Association decided
to build a Buddhist temple in Manila and invited Xingyuan there. The Japanese invasion
encouraged him to accept, and he transformed the temple from a site of ancestor worship
and rites for the dead into a Buddhist temple.
When Xingyuan retired he nominated Ruijin as his successor. Ruijin was born in
1905 in Jinjiang county and after ordination, was one of the rst monks to study in the
newly established South Fujian Buddhist Academy where he came to know Xingyun; it was
Xingyun who appointed him prior of Nanshan Temple and education head of the Nanshan
Buddhist Propagation School.
37
In 1933 he returned to Nanputuo Temple to help found a
school to prepare novices for the South Fujian Buddhist Academy and also founded the
36 Yu 1997. pp. 16371.
37 This was an elementary feeder school for the South Fujian Buddhist Academy.
the globalization of chinese buddhism 228
journal Buddhist Public Opinion . In 1946 he was invited to the Philippines by Xingyun
to become the head monk of Manilas Xinyuan Temple ; he became abbot there after
Xingyuan passed away.
38
Upon Hongquans death in Singapore in 1991 he also became
abbot of Singapores Pujue Temple.
North America: Zhiding was the rst Chinese monk to go to North America.
39
He was
born in 1919 in Guangdongs Qujiang county near Nanhua Temple , where
he often heard Xuyuns talks. He became Xuyuns lay disciple and, after graduating from
college, was ordained by Xuyun and served in the temples administration before enrolling
in a Buddhist seminary in Jiangsu Province. He returned to Nanhua Temple and served in
the temple administration as vice head of the temples Buddhist seminary, principal of its
primary school and then, in 1944, its head monk. In 1947 he accompanied Xuyun to Hong
Kong to perform a plenary mass. Many overseas Chinese from Hawaii attended and urged
Xuyun to establish a temple in Hawaii. Xuyun promised that Zhiding would eventually go.
In 1949 Zhiding ed to Hong Kong to escape the communists and three hundred members
of Hawaiis Chinese community wrote a letter inviting him to Hawaii. In preparation for
his arrival they established the Chinese Buddhist Association of Hawaii in 1953. Three
years later Zhiding emigrated to Honolulu and opened the Hsu Yun Temple in 1967.
To assist him Zhiding invited Fahui to come from Hong Kong. Fahui was born in
Guangdongs Panyu county in 1928. When he was a child, his family sought refuge
in Nanhua Temple and Xuyun became Fahuis tonsure master. The following year, at the
age of eighteen, he was ordained and entered Nanhua Temples Nanhua Jielu Seminary
. Zhiding was the seminarys vice-head and Fahui greatly impressed him. After
Zhiding went to Hong Kong he invited Fahui. In 1953 Fahui entered the Huanan Buddhist
Studies Academy , then recently founded by Tanxu who had sought refuge in
Hong Kong, giving him the chance to study under Tanxu. In Hawaii he supervised the
construction of Hsu Yun Temple, eventually succeeding Zhiding as abbot.
The second monk to travel to North America was Miaofeng .
40
He was born in
Guangdongs Zhanjiang county in 1917 and was ordained at Nanhua Temple by
Xuyun. In the autumn of 1949 he ed to Taiwan and enrolled at the Taiwan Buddhist
Seminary recently established at Yuanguang Temple by Cihang .
He then moved to the Fuyan Prayer Hall to study with the master monk
Yinshun , who had been ordained by Taixus ordination brother, had studied at the
Minnan Buddhist Academy under Taixu, and had a reputation as a brilliant scholar monk
in Taixus line of modern Buddhism. In 1954 Yinshun invited Miaofeng to teach at his
newly established Xinzhu Nuns Academy near Taipei. When a delega-
tion from San Francisco in 1960 asked Yinshun to send them a well-educated Cantonese-
speaking monk, Yinshun sent Miaofeng in 1962. A year later the Eastern United States
Buddhist Association invited Miaofeng to preside at the opening ceremony of its prayer
hall and his lectures were translated into English. Impressed by the larger audience, he
ignored letters from San Francisco imploring him to return and stayed in New York. In
38 Under his long abbotship another twenty-seven Buddhist temples were built in the Philippines, and
numerous charities and associations came into being (Chuan 1990, pp. 910).
39 Yu 1997, pp. 33448.
40 Yu 1997, pp. 394402.
229 yoshiko ashiwa and david l. wank
1963 he founded the Fawang Temple in Manhattans Chinatown, the Mt. Jinfo
Fawang Temple in upstate New York in 1977 and the Cihang Prayer Hall
in Queens in 1990, and he also published the Cihang Monthly .
Among the monks whom Miaofeng invited to the United States was Zhenghai , who
brought Buddhism to the American Southwest. He was born in 1931 in Tai county ,
Jiangsu province, to a poor farming family who gave him to the monks at a small temple.
When he was fteen he went to Baohuashan Temple , was ordained at Longchang
Temple , and studied at the Tianning Buddhist Seminary at Tianning
Temple . In 1949 he went to Taiwan and studied with Miaofengs teacher, Cihang.
He then spent eight years in Thailand studying Pali and Thai, and received a doctorate
in Buddhist studies from a Japanese university. In the U.S. he went to Houston and
established the Foguang Temple in 1980 and the larger Yufo Temple in
1990.
The third monk to North America was Ledu who was born in 1923 in Anhui
province.
41
After ordination in 1942 he entered the Zhanshan Buddhist Seminary
at Zhanshan Temple in Shandong province and studied under Tanxu. In
1947 Tanxu and Xuyun sent him to Hong Kong to help raise funds to restore Guangzhous
Guangxiao Temple . His travels through the chaos of the civil war deeply impressed
Ledu and so when laypersons told him of their hope that Tanxu would found a Buddhist
seminary in Hong Kong, Ledu telegrammed an invitation to Tanxu. Tanxu arrived in mid-
1948 and founded the Nanhua Buddhist Seminary, with Ledu in the rst class. After hear-
ing a devotee speak of the need for Buddhism in America, Ledu determined to spread
the dharma there and began to study English. In 1963 he was invited by a devotee in San
Francisco who had started the True Buddha-Daoism Research Society .
Because it was a syncretic religious site, Ledu soon left, upon being invited to New York by
one of Tanxus lay disciples, Jiang Huangyu , who had recently moved from Hong
Kong. In New York she worked with Shen Jiazhen and other refugee devotees to
establish the Eastern American Buddhist Association . With Ledu, these lay-
devotees founded the Buddhist Association of the United States . Ju Heru ,
wife of Shen Jiazhen, donated land in the Bronx to build the Duejue Temple , with
Ledu as head monk.
42
In 1974 Ledu established the Young Mens Buddhist Association of
America to translate sutras into English.
Two clergy whom Ledu invited to North America in the 1960s, Xingkong and
Chengxiang , introduced Buddhism to Canada. Xingkong was born in 1912 in Hebei
province, ordained in Beijings Guangji Temple at the age of sixteen, and studied
under Tanxu at the Zhanshan Buddhist Seminary. He accompanied Ledu and Tanxu to
Hong Kong and enrolled in the Nanhua Buddhist Seminary. Chengxiang was born in 1920
in Hebei province and was working in a Chinese medicine store when he heard Tanxu
talk in 1946. He took the precepts from Tanxu, was ordained at Dajue Temple in
Tianjin, and studied at Tanxus Nanhua Buddhist Seminary. In 1967 both monks visited
Ledu in New York, and were encouraged by him to propagate Buddhism in Canada. They
went to Toronto and founded the Canada Buddhist Association and Nanshan Temple, the
41 Yu 1997, pp. 37585.
42 Yu 1997, pp. 30607.
the globalization of chinese buddhism 230
Zhanshan Prayer Hall , the Buddhist Propagation Prayer Hall , the Inter-
national Buddhist Ocean Monastery , the Fohia Monastery , the
Zhanshan Chanyuan Monastery, and the Zhanshan Museum .
Cooperation and Resource Allocations: The afliations of religious kinship, loyalty to
charismatic monks, and regional ties enabled cooperation among the clergy. Cooperation
among the leading master monks in Southeast Asia was embedded in overlapping afli-
ations. First, in terms of religious kinship, the rst generation in the diaspora, Huiquan,
Zhuandao, and Xinyun, had studied under the monk Xican, with the latter having been
ordained by him. In the second generation, both Hongquan and Ruijin received dharma
transmissions from Zhuandao, making them members of the same descent line. Kinship
afliations among them were deepened through the dharma of Nanputuo Temple and its
South Fujian Buddhist Academy. Zhuandao had helped found its forerunner, the Sangha
Academy, while Huiquan, Xinyun, Hongquan, and Ruijin were students and then adminis-
trators in the academy.
43
Second, in terms of loyalty to charismatic monks, most had a strong
loyalty to Taixu, having studied or worked with him in the South Fujian Buddhist Academy.
Third, in terms of regional afliation all were from southern Fujian with Zhuandao, Huiquan
and Xingyuan being from Nanan county, and Hongquan and Ruijin from adjacent Jinjiang
county. In short, such multiple and overlapping afliations enabled tight coordination and
communication among these key monks.
Afliations among the clergy who went to North America are narrower with each
person connected to only a few monks, and there is little overlap of afliations. In the
kinship afliations of the rst group of monks, Zhiding in Hawaii was Xuyuns disciple,
Miaofeng was linked to Taixu, and Ledu was a disciple of Tanxu. Each of them subsequent-
ly invited clerics to North America with whom they shared a religious kinship. Zhiding
invited Fahui, who had also been ordained by Xuyun, which made them dharma brothers,
and both had held administrative posts in Nanhua Temple when Xuyun was abbot. Also,
both shared a regional afliation with Guangdong province. Miaofeng had afliations with
Zhenghai as both were followers of Cihang and had resided in Taiwan. Ledu and the two
monks he invited, Xingkong and Chengxiang, were all followers of Tanxu, and had resided
in his temples and had studied in his seminaries in China and Hong Kong.
Lay devotees are also linked to them through afliations. One is the afliation of
loyalty to the same master monk. Ledu and Jiang Huangyu both were disciples of Tanxu,
whom they had met in Hong Kong as refugees from China. Among the three hundred
overseas Chinese in Honolulu who had invited Zhiding were disciples of his master Xuyun.
In terms of regional afliations, the devotees and clerics in Southeast Asia were all from
southern Fujian province and were all Min dialect speakers. In North America almost no
regional afliations can be seen between devotees and clerics. But afliations of loyalty
proved highly adaptable as monks connected their lay devotees with their dharma kin. For
example, Ledu connected his New York lay devotees with Xingkong and Chengxiang, and
they cooperated to propagate Buddhism in New York and Toronto by establishing temples
that commemorated their master Tanxu.
43 According to one of our informants, the director of the Singapore Buddhist Lodge , Chinese
monks in Singapore can be linked with just ve temples in Southern Fujian Nanputuo, Kaiyuan, Cheng-
tian, Nanshan, and Xuefeng temples and that afliation of religious kinship connects all clergy in
Southeast Asia.
231 yoshiko ashiwa and david l. wank
Devotees in the diaspora can also draw clergy into their own networks of devotees,
although the network hinges on clerical authority for its integrity. Thus, Jiang Huangyu
who invited Ledu to New York subsequently introduced him to devotees in New Yorks
Shanghai refugee circle. Another example concerns Zhenghai who departed for Texas with
the phone number of a single Chinese lay-devotee in Houston given to him by Ledu. The
devotee was a follower of Yongxing in Hong Kong. It happened that Zhenghai also
knew Yongxing because both had studied Pali in Thailand. Thereupon the devotee tele-
phoned Yongxing and received his blessing to cooperate with Zhenghai. Both Yongxing
and the Houston devotee nancially supported the construction of Zhenghais rst temple
and Yongxing was selected as abbot.
44
Interestingly both of these examples depart from
Welchs claim that common vertical ties of loyalty to a charismatic monk do not stimulate
horizontal cooperation between clergy and devotees.
The networks of afliations played a role not only in the aforementioned personnel
moves but also in nancial resources, mostly as a movement from the diaspora to China
to support the reconstruction of temples. Zhuandao directed money from his disciples in
Southeast Asia to reconstruct temples in his ancestral region of south Fujian province.
At the end of the twentieth century Hongquan similarly directed funds to reconstruct all
of the temples in southern Fujian associated with his master Huiquan. Money can move
between afliations of region and religious kinship. For example, the Nanputuo Temple
abbot Miaozhan, who was a follower of Tanxu and came originally from Manchuria,
directed some of the funds donated by Southeast Asian overseas Chinese to various
temples in Manchuria, some of then associated with Tanxu.
With regard to personnel movements, the stream of clergy migrating to Southeast Asia
and North America has quickened since the revival of Buddhism in China from the early
1980s. Of the thirty or so clergy who have emigrated to the Philippines since the 1980s,
most are Min dialect speakers from southern Fujian and have links to such temples in the
Quanzhou region as Kaiyuan Temple. In North America, personnel often move through
loyalty to a charismatic monk; an example is Ledu sponsoring clergy from the South Fujian
Buddhist Academy to go to the United States in the 1980s. Both Ledu and Miaozhan ,
abbot of Nanputuo temple, were followers of Tanxu and had heard of each other although
they had not actually met. An informant told us that an elderly lay devotee teaching at the
South Fujian Buddhist Academy in the late 1980s had once been a monk who had resided
in Gaoming Temple decades earlier when Tanxu was abbot.
45
This devotee arranged for a
telephone call between Ledu and Miaozhan during which Ledu asked Miaozhan to send
young graduates of the academy to assist in his translation work. Possibly in recognition of
their common master, Miaozhan sent one of the brightest graduates of its rst graduating
class who had become his personal secretary.
Finally, movements of legitimacy and political support have gone in both directions.
Clerics acknowledge the institutional authority of their Buddhist lineage by naming the
temples they establish in the diaspora after the temples associated with their masters.
Zhiding named his temple in Honolulu the Hsu Yun Temple after his master, while
Ledu and the clerics he invited named their North American temples after ones in China
44 Yu 1997, p. 431.
45 Ven. Miaozhan Commemorative Volume 1997, 99.
the globalization of chinese buddhism 232
associated with their master Tanxu, hence New Yorks Dajue Temple and Montreals
Zhanshan Prayer Hall. More recently, in the late twentieth century, overseas Chinese
have helped lighten the limitations of state religious policy for Buddhists in China.
46
For
example, in the early 1980s, Hongquan successfully lobbied central state authorities in
Beijing to reopen the South Fujian Buddhist Academy. He also gave a dharma transmission
to Miaozhan to make him the 48th generation in Hongquans Linji sect descent line. This
heightened Miaozhans prestige in dealings with local state authorities.
Lay Devotee Networks as an Expansive Force
Lay devotees appear to be playing an increasingly prominent role in this more globalized
Buddhism, a difference from what Welch depicted in his organizational schema of
Buddhism. Increasingly, they are not simply providing support for clerics at specic points,
as depicted in Welchs geodesic dome metaphor, but rather appear as an expansive force of
the system itself to institutionalize Buddhism in overseas locales.
47

Two examples are illustrative. In Southeast Asia, the devotee Li Juncheng was
active in Singapore from the 1920s to the 1960s. He was born in 1888 in southern Fujians
Yongchun county and received a traditional Confucian education. At the age of
seventeen he emigrated to Malaya to work in his fathers business there and he established
several very successful rms. His concern about the education of overseas Chinese led him
to establish Chinese schools and to develop an interest in Buddhism. In 1925 he visited
Chinas holy Buddhist site Mt. Putuo and took the Refuges from the master monk
Yinguang. Upon return to Singapore his business grew dramatically with the merger of
his bank to form the Overseas Chinese Bank and he became a leading businessperson in
Singapore. He also began to work closely with Zhuandao, Hongquan and other promi-
nent monks in Malaya to propagate Buddhism. In the 1930s he funded construction of
a headquarters for the newly established Buddhist Lay Devotees Association and, shortly
before his death in 1966, supported the construction of a larger building. He nancially
supported Buddhist monasteries in Malaya, the restoration of old Chinese temples in India,
and wrote about Buddhism in ancient India. After World War II he created and headed
the Singapore Buddhist Association to further communication among the hundreds of
Buddhist temples from various ethnic groups in Singapore.
48

46 This is possible because of state economic policies that seek overseas Chinese investment and the belief
among local ofcials that showing tolerance to religion creates goodwill among overseas Chinese. It also
enhances the status of such leading monks as Hongquan in dealing with the state as they are seen as opinion
makers among overseas Chinese.
47 Of course, given the total lack of an infrastructure and the lack of an economic base for clerics in overseas
communities, lay devotees played a larger role in decision-making. We have already seen how the mere fact
that clerics immigrated was due in large to invitations by lay devotees. In constructing temples, the clerics
depended heavily on the devotees. This no doubt gave the devotees greater inuence in personnel appoint-
ments, as seen by the appointment of Yongxing as the rst abbot of the Yufuo Temple in Houston. In over-
seas communities, Buddhist temples are much more likely to have boards of directors that are staffed largely
by lay persons with nal authority over personnel appointments. But what is even more interesting is that
the activities and networks of some lay devotees is also constituting an expansive force for the system.
48 Yu 1997, pp. 4451.
233 yoshiko ashiwa and david l. wank
Lis activities are notable not only for his support of Buddhist temples in Malaya but
also for how his connections to other societal sectors helped institutionalize Buddhist
concerns in them. This is seen by the diverse organizations he headed: the Singapore
Chinese Aid Raising Society, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, the Fujian Native Place
Association, the Yongchun Association and the board of directors of the Bank of Singa-
pore. His positions and networks in these sectors not only enabled him to gather economic
resources from them to support Buddhism but also to institutionalize Buddhist concerns
in the educational and philanthropy sectors and even the state sphere. For example, in his
capacity as head of various organizations, he was able to lobby the Singapore government
to have Vesak made into a public holiday, to form a Buddhist Education Committee to
assist the Singapore government to promote Buddhist education and moral standards in
schools, and to work for greater religious freedom for Buddhists in Vietnam.
In North America, the devotee Shen Jiazhen also played a large role in institutionaliz
ing Buddhism. He was born in 1913 in Hangzhou to a father who was a high ofcial in the
Zhejiang provincial government. He attended a Catholic primary school and majored in
electrical engineering at Jiaotong University in Shanghai. His elite background is also
reected in his wife, a daughter of a Shanghai banker who was the assistant to Chinas
nance minister in the 1940s. In his rst job as a Nationalist government ofcial in charge
of resources, Shen traveled abroad to purchase power equipment and then supervised
power facilities in Kunming and Chongging, the two capitals of the Nationalist state in
China. In 1945 he resigned and set up a heavy industry trading company, presumably
drawing on his experiences and ties as a Nationalist ofcial. In 1949 he ed to Hong Kong
and then to the United States in 1952 where he became a director of shipping companies.
His involvement with Buddhism began in the early 1960s. Through his circle of recent
elite Chinese emigrants from Shanghai in New York,
49
he was introduced to Ledu in 1964
who had just arrived there.
50
Together they founded the United States Buddhist Associa-
tion to promote Ledus work. This association would soon become the largest
Buddhist organization in North America, although Shen was always too busy to chair it. In
1970 he founded the World Religion Research Institute in partnership with
the State University of New York at Stony Brook and helped build a Buddhist library in
Taiwan. In the 1970s he embarked on his signature project, the building of Zhuangyan
Temple in upstate New York on a 500-acre plot of land. For this the United States
Buddhist Association solicited donations from Chinese organizations and temples in
Taiwan, Hong Kong and other places. Almost three decades later the eight-building com-
plex design by the architect I. M. Pei was completed, and it houses numerous activities
including summer retreats, a library, and a project to digitalize all the sutras.
The activities of Li and Shen go far beyond simply providing support for clergy. Both
engaged in many activities that rested on their own status as Buddhist devotees, as well as
members of the social elite. Their activities were also a force for propagating Buddhism,
49 The devotee Jiang Huangyu who originally invited Ledu to New York was also the wife of a wealthy Shanghai
businessman.
50 In his autobiography, he writes that Ledu deeply impressed him by criticizing the corruption within
Buddhism caused by inghting among sects, and by monks who considered temples as their personal
property (He 1999, p. 164).
the globalization of chinese buddhism 234
not only by the funding of Buddhist temples and the creation of Buddhist organiza-
tions, but also through links to other societal sectors. These activities proceeded through
networks both local and transnational among the devotees.
conclusion
This article has examined the globalization of Chinas Buddhism during the course of the
twentieth century. The processes of imperialism, nation-state formation, and capitalism
that brought values of nation, scientism, and progress to China and stimulated Buddhist
reform movements in China, also conveyed this Buddhism abroad through the expanded
emigration of Chinese overseas.
One analytic focus has been the process by which this has occurred. We have drawn
on Welchs typology of network afliations that constitute the historically decentralized
organization of Buddhism to examine the movement of Buddhism transnationally. This
has shown how afliations of kinship, loyalty to charismatic monks, and regional ties have
enabled movements of personnel, nances, and legitimacy across nation-state borders. The
analysis has also suggested ways in which globalization has transformed these networks
in ways linked to the rising prominence of lay devotees. First, loyalties to master monks
now also serve as the basis for horizontal coordination between devotees and clergy, some-
thing that Welch maintained had not happened in China. Secondly, devotees are no longer
merely sources of support for clergy in locales but are becoming an expansive force of the
system itself, forging their own networks and creating their own activities.
Another analytic focus has been how the institutionalization of Buddhism in specic
locales is also constrained by the national-space in which this occurred. We have high-
lighted the effect of difference between the relatively open immigration policies of the
colonial states in Southeast Asia and the more closed ones of North America. Thus con-
tinuous migration streams in the former contrast with interrupted movements in the
latter to explain the different mixes of afliations that conveyed Buddhism to these two
regions in the diaspora. Presumably the different characters of the networks could also
explain some differences between Buddhist practices in these two regions. Such an inquiry
would accord with the thrust of recent studies of transnational religion that inquire into
changes in practices and beliefs that occur through transnational projection into different
nation-state spaces, but that is beyond the scope of this article.
51

Our third analytic focus has been the interactive process of the globalization of
Buddhism. The transnational networks were not unidirectional but have involved
51 See Chafetz and Ebaugh 2002,Weller 2003, Yang 1999. One possible application of this focus to our analysis
could link differences in religious practices in the two regions of the diaspora to differences in the networks
among the Buddhists. For example, Buddhist clergy in Southeast Asia were from the same dialect region
as the overseas Chinese population Min speakers from southern Fujian. Perhaps as a consequence, many
Chinese Buddhist temples in Southeast Asia have elements and practices close to such popular or folk
practices as housing ancestor tablets in temples and performing rituals such as hungry ghost feeding (fang-
yankou). By contrast Buddhism came to the United States through movements largely outside the original
immigrant community. Many devotees who sponsored monks were educated professionals and former
ofcials who were more interested in Buddhisms canonical aspects. Also many of the monks were from
North China, where Buddhism contain fewer elements of folk practice and ancestor worship. Such reasons
possible explain why major Buddhist temples in North America appear to emphasize sutras and scholarship
and less the ancestor worship and rituals practices that are more obvious in Southeast Asia. See Chandler
(1998) for an interesting discussion of Buddhism in North America in relation to patterns of immigration.
235 yoshiko ashiwa and david l. wank
exchanges and movements proceeding in both directions. Throughout much of the twen-
tieth century, there has been a tendency for personnel to move from China to overseas,
to staff the growing number of temples in other countries. Networks of personnel ows
are shifting as new Chinese temples overseas turn to indigenous populations to meet
their personnel needs. Thus for example, Fahui, the second abbot of Honolulus Hsu Yun
Temple, has cultivated numerous non-Chinese clergy and elevated several to the status of
master, who lead the Hsu Yun Buddhist Association, an organization devoted to propagat-
ing Xuyuns teachings. Other temples are also drawing in Chinese from other points in the
diaspora to serve in the temples. For example, a small Guanyin temple in Los Angeles with
an elderly congregation of Chinese from the Chaozhou region of Guangdong province had
several young nuns from Vietnam and Taiwan who were Chaozhou speakers. They had
come to the United States as students and after several years decided to become clerics.
This further indicates an ongoing process in the growth of networks between Buddhists of
different countries and regions of the diaspora.
The nancial movements that we have described have largely gone in the opposite
direction as funds from overseas Chinese were sent back to China to reconstruct temples
and pay for elaborate ceremonies. In Fujian this was especially visible in the nancial sup-
port provided by master monks such as Hongquan for restoring many of the regions major
temples. However, the growth of the middle class in China since the late 1970s is generat-
ing nancial patronage within China, reducing the relative importance of funding from
Chinese outside of the Peoples Republic. Also, following their restoration, many of these
temples have been increasingly able to generate their own revenue. Nanputuo Temple and
other secondary temples have become major tourist attractions and gain income from gate
receipts and such commercial activities as vegetarian restaurants, while donations during
major festivals have soared and many monks are able to nd personal patrons among the
rising business class. In addition, as a temples facilities and personnel revive, it can once
again conduct rituals for a fee, generating much income.
52

Finally, the surge in tourism by overseas Chinese to China over the past two decades
suggests a new kind of interaction. During our interviews and observations at some
travel companies in Singapore and New York that arrange the tours, we were struck by the
number of Buddhist temples in tour itineraries. One travel company owner estimated that
temples account for almost two-thirds of the sites on a tour of China. She explained that
parents often take their children on tours to acquaint them with the traditional culture
of their ancestral homeland. This representation dovetails with the Chinese Communist
Party repositioning of Buddhist temples as Chinas historical material culture, a marked
shift away from their representations from the 1950s to the 1970s as barriers to histori-
cal progress. By seeking to garner the loyalty of Chinese citizens through cultural appeals,
the Chinese state also becomes an element in the transnational networks that conate
Chinese culture and identity with Buddhism.
52 In this, overseas Chinese have played a large role. This is because the most elaborate and expensive rituals,
such as fangyankou, can easily run afoul of state religious policy because of possible superstitious elements.
But if overseas Chinese commission them, local ofcials, who view the overseas Chinese as potential investors
in the local economy, do not interfere. Such personal donations and ritual fees provide a stream of income
that goes directly into the pockets of the clerics and cannot be touched by the state religious administration
authorities.
the globalization of chinese buddhism 236
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