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Buddhism under the Communists

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Holmes Welch
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Extract

This article offers a preliminary estimate of what has happened to Buddhists and Buddhist organisations in mainland China during the eleven years since the Chinese People's Republic was founded. Much of the data belongs to the year 1958 when the most rapid changes occurred. Early in 1959, the China mainland press, from which nearly all the data comes, began to give less news on Buddhism. In November 1959 the most important single source, Modern Buddhism, was withdrawn from general circulation abroad. Several sentences in the October number, suggest that Peking had become increasingly sensitive to stories of a persecution of Buddhism, and had resolved that the mainland press, at least, would not supply any more evidence of it. The picture is fairly complete, however, with the evidence already in hand.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 6 , June 1961 , pp. 1 - 14
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1961

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References

1 “Our enemies abroad are still slandering that our Party and government are persecuting the Buddhist religion.… What they do is merely to close their eyes and slander our great religious policy. We are not afraid of the slanders of enemies.” (Modern Buddhism, hereafter abbreviated as M. B., October 1959, p. 22.) Compare the often defensive tone of Shirob Jaltso's article in the same issue, and Shirob's remark to the National People's Congress (NPC) in April 1960, where he exposed “the shameless slander of the liars of the western capitalist countries who clamoured that there was no freedom of religion in China” (New China News Agency hereafter abbreviated as NCNA, Peking, April 5, 1960). Curiously enough this remark does not seem to have been included in the text published by the Jen-min Jih-pao (People's Daily). Compare Survey of the China Mainland Press, hereafter abbreviated as SCMP, 2235/7 and Current Background, hereafter abbreviated as CB, 627/26, both published by the U.S. Consulate-General, Hong Kong.

2 M. B., October 1958, p. 33.

3 M. B., November 1958, p. 31. Here the number of monks is given as sixty, but earlier it was over ninety (see Nan-yang Jih-pao, 06 11, 1958).Google Scholar

4 M. B., October 1958, p. 27.

5 Ciana News Service, Peking, 09 2, 1955Google Scholar (see SCMP 1128/10), etc.; but compare M. B. September 1958, p. 27, where the Buddhists and Taoists of Peking pledge themselves to assist sick and aged Buddhists and Taoists who are unable to work.

6 M. B., December 1958, p. 28. When the co-operative at Mt. Nan-yüeh was set up in February 1957 only twenty-two of the eighty-three monks were capable of full-time labour (M. B., November 1958, p. 28).

7 e.g., M. B., June 1958, p. 24; M. B., July 1958, pp. 18, 19.

8 Kweichow Jih-pao, 07 10, 1958, p. 1.Google ScholarCf. pledge of Peking Buddhists and Taoists that “personal religious life should not affect production” M. B. 09 1958, p. 27.Google Scholar

9 M. B., June 1958, p. 26. There are several inconsistencies between the account given here and that in M. B., November 1958, p. 28.

10 Peking Kuang-ming Jih-pao, 08 8, 1958Google Scholar (SCMP, 1837/39); M. B., June 1958, p. 27; ibid., September 1958, p. 27; December 1958, p. 33.

11 NCNA, Peking, 06 8, 1953 (see SCMP 585/11–16).Google Scholar

12 Ibid.

13 Probably regarded by a majority of Chinese as the most distinguished monk in China. Though he refused to give the Communists the co-operation they wanted, he was still an honorary chairman of the Buddhist Association when he died in October 1959. Chagangogun died in May 1957, but had not been replaced as of May 1959. The Dalai Lama, though he fled to India in March 1959, continues to hold the position given him by Peking.

14 Before 1949, he was a businessman who worked with the International Red Cross. In 1950 the new government appointed him Deputy Director of the Civil Affairs Department of the East China Military and Administrative Committee and, a year later, made him Deputy Director of the M.A.C.'s Personnel Department. Since he became Secretary-General of the Buddhist Association in 1953, he has been extremely active in the whole range of united front activities. He is a deputy from Anhwei to the second National People's Congress; a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee; and his position is sufficiently high so that he attended the seventeenth meeting of the Supreme State Conference on August 24, 1959. I have seen no record of his membership in the Chinese Communist Party, but he has proved himself a trusted Party supporter.

15 NCNA, Peking, March 26 and 31 (SCMP 1500/11 and 1503/10). M. B., May 1957, pp. 30–31, as quoted by China News Analysis 221'5.Google Scholar

16 M. B., November 1958, p. 23; cf. September 1958, p. 9, etc.

17 M. B., October 1958, p. 21; September 1958, p. 27; Kirin Jih-pao, 06 20, 1958 (see SCMP 1834/10) etc.Google Scholar

18 M. B., October 1959, p. 10.

19 M. B., February 1958, p. 32. Cf. Tsinghai Jih-pao, 01 17, 1958Google Scholar (see CB 549/5); October 23, 1958 (see SCMP 1932/19).

20 M. B., September 1958, p. 28.

21 Ibid.; M. B., December 1958, p. 33; Kirin Jih-pao, 06 20, 1958Google Scholar (see SCMP 1834/11); Kweichow Jih-pao, 07 10, 1958, p. 1.Google Scholar In October 1959 Shirob Jaltso protested that there was freedom for people to give and for monks to accept “legitimate alms and offerings,” but almost in the same breath he condemned “using Buddha as a pretence for making money.” M. B., 10 1959, pp. 12–13).Google Scholar

22 M. B., September 1958, p. 28; July 1959, p. 34; December 1958, p. 33; Kweichow Jih-pao, 07 10, 1958, p. 1.Google Scholar

23 M. B., December 1958, p. 33.

24 Nan-fang Jih-pao, 06 11, 1958 (see CB 510/22).Google Scholar

25 e.g., M. B., June 1958, p. 23.

26 M. B., September 1958, p. 28; Kweichow Jih-pao, 07 10, 1958, p. 1.Google Scholar

27 Nan-fang Jih-pao, 06 11, 1958Google Scholar (see also CB 510/21 et seq.).

28 M. B., November 1958, p. 34.

29 ibid.

30 Kuang-ming Jih-pao, 08 8, 1958Google Scholar (see SCMP 1837/39); M. B., October 1958, p. 34; December 1958, pp. 30–32; etc.

31 NONA 02 4, 1958Google Scholar (see SCMP 1759/20) cf. NCNA Peking, 03 11, 1958Google Scholar (see SCMP 1733/1).

32 M. B., August 1958, p. 28. Cf. poem by dharma master Hsin-tao in M. B., December 1958, p. 31.

33 NCNA Peking, October 14, 1959 (see SCMP 2120/9). In a not dissimilar vein, NCNA Lhasa, August 24, 1960, reported that at a harvest festival, one “former woman serf… went over to a field, plucked a sheaf of barley ears, and laid it before the portrait of Chairman Mao Tse-tung.”

34 M. B., October 1958, p. 21.

35 M. B., September 1958, p. 27. Cf. the statement alleged to have been made in the last will and testament of Yuan Ying, Chairman of the Chinese Buddhist Association, that “participation in patriotic movements and efforts for world peace… are the sole foundation on which Buddhists may expect to become Buddhas,” (M. B., September 1956, p. 27).

36 M. B., September 1956, pp. 12–15.

37 What such visitors do not realise is that most of the Buddhist buildings in China have since 1950 simply been confiscated by the government and turned into schools, nurseries, barns, factories and warehouses. Images have been melted down as scrap-metal or collected for sale as curios. Even in the case of buildings that are intact, most appear to have been preserved purely as cultural monuments. Only a very few have continued to function as monasteries and in them are collected the remaining monks from institutions that have been closed down.

38 Kuang-ming Jih-pao, 09 23, 1956, p. 1.Google Scholar

39 Jen-min Jih-pao, 03 17, 1957, p. 8Google Scholar (see China News Analysis, 221/6).

40 NCNA Shenyang, 08 2, 1959 (see SCMP 2072/35).Google Scholar

41 According to the mainland Press the number of monks in China is 500,000, with 100,000,000 Buddhist believers (Che-hsueh Yen-chiu (Philosophical Research), 02 15, 1958—seeGoogle Scholar CB 510/11; M. B., October 1959, p. 10). These figures are, in my opinion, far too high, even considering the 110,000 monks and nuns in Tibet (as of March 1960: see CB 626/15). In China proper, excluding minority areas, I doubt that there are more than 5,000 monks and nuns who continue, so far as they are allowed, to lead a monastic life.

42 See “Atheists and Theists Can Co-operate Politically and Travel the Road to Socialism” by Chih-i, Chang in Che-hsueh Yen-chiu, 02 1958 (CB 510/18).Google Scholar