The Space of Religion

Temple, State, and Buddhist Communities in Modern China

Yoshiko Ashiwa, David L. Wank

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English

Columbia University Press
29 August 2023

Religious groups: social & cultural aspects

Series: The Sheng Yen Series in Chinese Buddhist Studies

The Nanputuo Temple in the southeastern Chinese city of Xiamen has been a cherished site for the worship of the bodhisattva Guanyin for centuries. It was a center of modernizing Buddhism in the early twentieth century and a flagship for the revival of Buddhism after state suppression during the Cultural Revolution. The Space of Religion takes readers inside the Nanputuo Temple in order to explore the practice of Buddhism in modern China and the complex relationship between Buddhism and the Chinese state.

Based on three decades of ethnographic research, Yoshiko Ashiwa and David L. Wank tell the story of Nanputuo against the backdrop of a dramatic stretch of Chinese history. They vividly depict episodes such as renovating the halls, reestablishing ties with overseas Chinese donors, conflicts with local government, revival of ritual life, reopening of its Buddhist academy, and the passion of the Guanyin birthday festival. To understand Nanputuo, Buddhist communities, and other temples in Xiamen, Ashiwa and Wank develop the concept of religion as a space constituted by physical, semiotic, and institutional dimensions. They also show how the Chinese state and Buddhism have each adapted to the other, as the temple has adjusted to government policy while the state has deployed Buddhism in its promotion of Chinese culture.

This interdisciplinary book is both a theoretically generative analysis of religious spaces and an empirically rich account of the recovery of Buddhism in China after the Mao era.

By: Yoshiko Ashiwa, David L. Wank
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9780231197342
ISBN 10: 0231197349
Series: The Sheng Yen Series in Chinese Buddhist Studies
Pages: 440
Publication Date: 29 August 2023
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Acknowledgments Conventions Glossary of Temple Names in Xiamen City Introduction Part I: Concept, Spaces, History 1. Themes and Concepts of the Study 2. Physical and Semiotic Spaces of Nanputuo Temple 3. Institutional Space and Nanputuo Temple’s Historical Capital Part II: Recovery and Development of Nanputuo Temple 4. Revival of Buddhist Practice and Education, 1982–1989 5. Expansion and Conflict in the Space of Religion, 1989–1995 6. Aligning with the Central State, 1996–2004 Part III: Nanputuo Temple and Local Buddhist Communities 7. Dynamism of Local Temples 8. Devotees and Lay Nuns 9. The Guanyin Festival: Being Buddhist the Chinese Way Conclusion Appendix 1: Leaders of Nanputuo Temple, 1684– Appendix 2: Nanputuo Temple, a Millennium of Construction and Renewal Appendix 3: Buddhist College of Minnan Curriculum, 1989 Appendix 4: Ordination Ceremony Schedule, October 13–29, 1989, Guanghua Temple Notes References Index

Yoshiko Ashiwa is professor emeritus at Hitotsubashi University and visiting professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Tokyo. David L. Wank is professor emeritus at Sophia University and visiting researcher at the Oriental Library, Tokyo. Ashiwa and Wank have worked together extensively, including coediting Making Religion, Making the State: The Politics of Religion in Modern China (2009).

Reviews for The Space of Religion: Temple, State, and Buddhist Communities in Modern China

Based on extraordinarily rich ethnography, deep historical research, and a subtle theoretical framework, The Space of Religion shows how one of China’s most important temples reemerged, changed, and caused transformations of its political and cultural contexts over the past several decades. It makes a major advance toward understanding the surprising and consequential rise of a dynamic space for religion in China. -- Richard Madsen, coeditor of The Sinicization of Chinese Religions: From Above and Below The Space of Religion provides a detailed description through extended fieldwork of the functioning of an important Buddhist monastery in China and how the temple 'space' became recomposed on three levels—physical, institutional, and semiotic—after the Cultural Revolution. In doing so, Ashiwa and Wank produce an analysis of the transformation of state policies and related public perception of religion in China. -- Ji Zhe, coeditor of Making Saints in Modern China The Space of Religion is far more than just a very valuable account of institutional change in a Buddhist context. It also outlines a fresh and important critical analysis, grounded in historical detail and exemplary ethnography, of how the concepts ‘religion,’ ‘superstition,’ and ‘culture’ emerged and were enacted (and contested) between the state, clerics, and the people over the last hundred years of Chinese history. -- David N. Gellner, coauthor of Rebuilding Buddhism: The Theravada Movement in Twentieth-Century Nepal Ashiwa and Wank have written a superb account, both historical and ethnographic, of Nanputuo, one of the most important Buddhist temples in southern China. Based on decades of intensive study, this immensely readable book offers insights into the developments that have shaped the political environment in which the temple's clerics operate. It also gives a theoretically astute interpretation of the semiotics of space in the temple that allows the reader to get a feeling for the ways in which the teachings of the Buddha take material and ritual shape in the temple's space. For anyone interested in Buddhism or contemporary Chinese society this book is invaluable and a must-read. -- Peter van der Veer, author of The Modern Spirit of Asia: The Spiritual and the Secular in China and India Essential reading for scholars of Buddhism in modern China and a valuable resource for China specialists and students interested in state–religion dynamics in the People’s Republic. * China Quarterly * A remarkable study of the role of Buddhism as a space in the modern transformation of China from the late-19th century to the present...Highly recommended. * Choice * Offers a vast amount of data culled from diverse sources that vividly illustrates the recovery of Buddhism at one of the most important temple complexes in southern China. * H-Buddhism *