Modern Chinese history told from a Buddhist perspective restores the
vibrant, creative role of religion in postimperial China. It shows how
urban Buddhist elites jockeyed for cultural dominance in the early
Republican era, how Buddhist intellectuals reckoned with science, and
how Buddhist media contributed to modern print cultures. It recognizes
the political importance of sacred Buddhist relics and the complex
processes through which Buddhists both participated in and experienced
religious suppression under Communist rule. Today, urban and rural
communities alike engage with Buddhist practices to renegotiate class,
gender, and kinship relations in post-Mao China.
This volume vividly portrays these events and more, recasting Buddhism
as a critical factor in China's twentieth-century development. Each
chapter connects a moment in Buddhist history to a significant theme in
Chinese history, creating new narratives of Buddhism's involvement in
the emergence of urban modernity, the practice of international
diplomacy, the mobilization for total war, and other transformations of
state, society, and culture. Working across an extraordinary thematic
range, this book reincorporates Buddhism into the formative processes
and distinctive character of Chinese history.