1 Introduction: Repositioning Buddhism
Since the late Qing, Buddhist clerics and the laity started framing Buddhism and Buddhist practice within a new set of conceptual categories, especially analytical ideas imported from the West or via Japan, and also through revisited and redefined Chinese (and Buddhist) endogenous ideas. Buddhists worked to reposition themselves and their tradition in the new cultural and political time; they updated Buddhist taxonomy and vocabulary and articulated new semantics of traditional terminologies. This process was unfolding in a wider social and intellectual milieu of challenges and paradigm shifts, a milieu that involved other groups and patterns, with whom Buddhists acted in parallel but also intersected. Certainly, this scenario was not confined to the Chinese soil; as Krämer writes in his contribution to this volume, the Japanese were facing a similar atmosphere, and experiencing the process to reposition Buddhism within a new set of values.
In this chapter, I will explore the new ways Chinese and Taiwanese Buddhists understood and used the specific term xin
Unlike other chapters in this volume, I am not much concerned with the concept of “belief” or “faith” and the plurality of their Chinese translations, which included—but are not limited to—the character xin. Instead, I will specifically address the character xin, and related compounds, and unpack the spectrum of meanings that these terms embedded. It will appear that the semantic scale of xin includes concepts that we may translate in English with terms like faith or belief, intended in the sense of unconditional confidence in—and reliance on—specific doctrines, but also as a preliminary and necessary step in the path of cultivation and practice towards the ultimate religious and spiritual realization. In the several compounds that will be explored in this chapter, xin assumes qualitative nuances as, for instance, right or wrong, positive or negative, rational or irrational, secular or spiritual. Finally, Buddhist discussions on xin associate this term with other expressions and ideas, like the call for saving the country (jiuguo
I have based this xin(yang) research mostly on articles published in Bud- dhist journals in the first half of the twentieth century, and will reveal the debates Buddhists developed around this concept, diachronically and synchronically, and how those debates were embedded within social and political discourses. In fact, some of these Buddhist-authored works were not just concerned with Buddhism’s status quo, but also mirrored and reframed the political thoughts of rulers such as Sun Yat-sen
Finally, my research draws on intellectual debates that animated Taiwan in those same decades, i.e., during the Japanese occupation of the island, given the relevance of Buddhist and otherwise intellectual exchanges between China and Taiwan in those years, and how intellectual movements in China affected—or interacted with—Taiwan, too. In other words, we may want not to think of Republican China and Japan-ruled Taiwan as distant entities, but should rather recognize their interconnection, and revalue East Asia’s role as a macro-area with common underlying narratives. In fact, a study of Taiwan would also shed light on the debates in Japan from the Meiji through the Taishō and the beginning of the Shōwa eras,3 and thus contextualize Chinese perspectives within the wider East Asian region.
In Chinese Buddhism, the semantics of xin(yang) intersects with several domains, in fact recurring in discussions about practice, doctrine, and institutions. In this chapter, I will then group and analyze modern Buddhist semantics of xin under four headings. In Part 2, I will explore systems of classification of xin proposed by several well-known, but also other less-known, Buddhist monastics and laypeople, via careful attention to the binaries zhengxin
As this chapter will show, it is quite difficult to arrange these debates and different arguments into a single narrative, or to discuss the topic via an official history. The complexity of voices, however, shared one common feature: the need to reposition conceptual semantics of Buddhism within the reconstruction process of the new China.
2 Categorizing xin 信 : zhengxin 正信 vis-à-vis mixin 迷信
As explained briefly in the Introduction, the character xin has been charged with different values via the addition of qualitative prefixes that added nuances to its root meaning of “trust,” “belief,” or its reference, in relational way, to “ethical values.” Several written discussions on xin, for example, developed around the particular dichotomy of zheng-xin (correct belief) and mi-xin (superstitious belief), or in other words, within the categorization of a positive xin and a negative xin. Zhengxin is often identified with the basic refuge in the three jewels, namely Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and thus with a faith that brings awakening (wuxin
As we will see in this section, the opposite categories of zhengxin and mixin have been debated within the context of different schools’ doctrines and practices, in relation to the historical development of the Buddhadharma from India to China, and in parallel with the new pressing challenge of scientism and secularism. Some publications included both these categories explicitly, while others discussed one with implicit reference to the other. Often, this categorization associated the character xin with the newly reconsidered term zongjiao
The concept of a correct xin is frequently associated with a specific school or even a specific figure within one school; this is certainly in line with the sectarian nature of pre-modern Chinese Buddhism, and when it comes to Taiwan it is also the effect of the relevance of sectarianism in Japanese Buddhism. Moreover, debate on a correct xin also embraces other interconnected concepts such as xiuxing
The value and virtue of (the positive) religious/Buddhist xin (faith) lie in the fact that it exceeds the power of materiality and science, that it can in fact address situations that would otherwise remain unexplored or unexplained within the framework of material culture or science. In this perspective, some Buddhists have argued that in a world and time dominated by materiality and scientific development, and where and when everything is judged and categorized according to scientific criteria, there is still a strong need to recognize that the power of xin/xinyang (faith) overcomes material culture/material science. Faith does have its inner value, then, and it is defined as a spiritual culture (jingshen wenhua
Some other articles address only mixin, still in terms of “wrong faith” (cuowu de xinyang
Others insisted on the opposition between mixin and kexue, stating that mixin develops especially when and where kexue has not flourished yet. These articles refer to the concept of a positive and “correct” xin, even if mostly implicitly; see, for instance, the explicit statement that the overall idea of zongjiao, here taken in connection to a positive xin, can be “good” for individuals and surrounding societies.17 Yet the correlation between mixin and kexue is quite multifaceted, implying both a distance and an overlap between the two concepts.
And some Buddhists debated the binary zhengxin – mixin within two main contexts: the overall development of Buddhism,18 and the overall Chinese (Han) cultural sphere.
2.1 Xin 信 within the History of Buddhism: Early Indian Practices vs. Chinese Domestication
Some Buddhists, in China and Taiwan, argued that Buddhism/Buddhadharma, in its original phase of formation and practice in India, was just zhengxin, while it developed mixin characteristics after the transmission to China, hence after going through the process of Chinese domestication, inter-religious borrowing, and merging with Chinese local traditions and systems of thought.
This argument was in line with a more general view, which developed between the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Chinese Buddhist intellectual circles, that identified early Buddhism as the only “pure” Buddhism and participated in reinforcing the narrative of so-called “original Buddhism.” This argument was partly connected to eighteenth- and nineteenth centuries European Buddhological scholarship and its conceptualization of an “original Buddhism”; it also encouraged renewed interest in the study of early Indian Buddhism, including a revaluation of textual corpora such as the Āgamas, which became a key feature of Chinese Buddhism in the first half of the twentieth century.19
Criticism of the Chinese domestication of Buddhism was based on the conviction that the influence of Chinese local religions and cultures (namely popular beliefs and Daoism, but also Confucianism) corrupted the original message of the Buddhadharma. In this context, mi-xin becomes an umbrella term that defines Chinese religious beliefs and practices, other than Bud- dhism, that were led by blind feelings (ganqing
A group of Buddhists went even further and criticized not merely the Chinese conquest of Buddhism and the Chinese versions of Buddhist doctrine and practice, but also argued that rituals and liturgy in Buddhism, overall, had to be perceived as mixin. A journal article stated explicitly that Dharma services were just mixin (fahui yi shi mixin
Other writings proposed more nuanced arguments by drawing various typologies of manifestations and performance of Chinese Buddhist xin(yang), and categorizing some of them in terms of zhengxin, and others as mixin. And this is how several practices, like sūtra recitation when done with a pure heart, were classified as zhengxin. However, all the so-called practices based on the concept of “exchange” (jiaohuan
Not all Buddhists in Republican China shared this positive attention to Indian Buddhism, and the criticism of the Chinese tradition that went with it; especially those belonging to more conservative and traditional groups still identified the early Indian tradition as the “Lesser Vehicle” (xiaosheng
2.2 The Impact of Christianity: mixin 迷信 Originated in the West?
While some Buddhists differentiated a “pure” (Indian) Buddhism from Chinese endogenous beliefs and systems of thought, others drew a clear distinction between Buddhism overall and the foreign Christianity, which had become a more competitive and threatening force for Buddhists in China since the late Qing.
Several articles, written from the late 1920s until the late 1930s and authored by either lay Buddhists or clerics, argued that Buddhism (in the general sense, without making any explicit distinction between the Indian or Chinese traditions) was a zhixin
They took their argument a step further and concluded that the overall phenomenon of mixin was alien to China and Asia, that it began in the West and originated from Christianity.26 The inaugural issue of Dafo xuebao
Buddhism is defined as a logical, human-centered, and reason-based belief, which is rooted in the law of cause and effect and therefore puts human beings in charge of their own destiny (zili zhi yinguo
2.3 Mixin 迷信 vis-à-vis kexue 科學 : Opposition or Overlap?
Republican debates on the value of zongjiao/religion and the problematics of mixin very often included Christianity, and the role that the latter had played in the Chinese epistemology of the terms zongjiao and mixin. The anti-religion movement (fei zongjiao yundong
An article published in 1946, for instance, explored the idea of science and superstitions not as opposite terms and concepts, but as two parts of the same conceptual compound; this relation of connection, rather than opposition, brought a new meaning to the two terms. This was another way of arguing against the conflicting relations between religion and science that had emerged in the first half of the twentieth century. Two new compounds, and two new analytical concepts, then appeared: the notion of kexue mixin
From a different perspective, the monk Fafang
In those same years, Taiwan hosted the publication of written arguments about the need for cooperation, not opposition, between kexue and zongjiao/xinyang, and the call to use the Japanese attempts in this respect as exemplary.37 These Taiwanese publications echoed the ongoing debate in Japan, where Buddhists had to respond to internal and external pressure to position “religion” vis-à-vis the domains of “state” and “science.”38
3 Legitimizing xin 信 in the Public Discourse: Benefiting Society and Rescuing the Nation
This section will propose views on xin from Buddhist figures who have often been recognized as the leaders of crucial networks in Republican China; moreover, they were often protagonists of several exchanges and negotiations with the political powers. Although these voices and arguments are not exhaustive of the Buddhist landscape, they become crucial because they delineate the official discourse of xin in a public and secular sphere too. The claim of a certain Buddhist xin as instrumental in the making of the new China gave then new values to xin and religion.
The layman Fan Gunong
The duals zhengxin and mixin recurred in the writings of the eminent monk Yuanying
In those same years, the monk Taixu
Another influential Buddhist leader in the first half of the twentieth- century was the monk Cihang
The intersecting of narratives between the religious sphere and the political domain reveals parallels, associations, and ideological borrowing and merging. For instance, the call for “rescuing the nation” (jiuguo) was raised not only by the Buddhist/religious community, but, as Klein explains in his chapter, was a core tenet in Sun Yat-sen’s politics and the KMT government. Another example from the process of borrowing and unifying terminology concerns the relations that both domains, the Buddhist and the political (KMT), had with Confucianism and governing principles. For instance, Confucian ideals, like the datong
Taixu’s second principle (Fohua zhuyi
In other words, the relations between the religious and the political at that time were more complex than a mere opposition or pure collaboration. I will explore other patterns of this interplay in Part 4.
4 Politicizing xin 信 : a Buddhist Reading of Sun Yat-sen’s and Chiang Kai-shek’s Views on xin(yang) 信仰
While Klein’s chapter in this volume explores political use of the concepts of “belief” and “trust” in the Republican period, I will address how the viewpoints of the same political protagonists were perceived by the Buddhist community. A good reference for this research are the writings of the monk and historian Dongchu
In his Zhongguo fojiao jindai shi
In his Jiang zongtong yu fojiao
This reading of Sun Yat-sen’s and Chiang Kai-shek’s positions helped to ground the legitimacy of the arguments proposed by those Buddhist leaders who had stressed Buddhism as a socially and politically useful “belief” (and “religion”).
5 Institutionalizing xin 信 : the Buddhist Right Faith Society Fojiao zhengxin hui 佛教正信會 (China) and the Right Faith Society Zhengxin hui 正信會 (Taiwan)
The concept of a “correct faith” was not only extrapolated to interpret scriptures and practices, or to provide authority to the discursive narrative on the role of Buddhism in the public domain. Quite soon, in the 1920s, it also became the name of lay associations, in China and Taiwan. The Buddhist Right Faith Society (Fojiao zhengxin hui
The Hankou fojiaohui
The lay leadership of this organization reflects crucial changes that had happened in the contemporary Buddhist context, where the laity had assumed a major role and were no longer subordinate to the Sangha; on a certain level, the laity had become an alternative to the Sangha, and acted in parallel to the monastic community.75
Although there is no evidence of direct connections between this lay association and Japan, we should notice that those were the years when “new religions” (shin shūkyō
In 1934, just a few years after the creation of The Buddhist Right Faith Society, a similar society was founded in Taiwan. It was established in Taizhong, within the Taizhong Buddhist Association (Taizhong fojiaohui
The Chinese Right Faith Buddhist Society and the Taiwanese Right Faith Society were established in the same years; they shared the common concern for reviving a proper Buddhist faith, and overcoming the other beliefs which were called mixin. At the same time, however, these two groups were the outcomes and manifestations of two different local histories, and were facing two different forms of colonization. China was rebuilding her own nation and identity, “rescuing” it from the challenges of Western ideologies and a traditional—often perceived as backward—local past, embracing exogenous concepts and reshaping endogenous ones. On the other hand, Taiwan was writing her own history of occupation and Japanese “domestication” of culture, drawing distinction between categories of beliefs (some more mixin than others), and questioning the Chinese and Japanese identities of “proper” Buddhism.
6 Conclusion: Continuities and Ruptures in the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-First Centuries
From the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, in both China and Taiwan, the character xin functioned as key word in several debates either initiated or joined by the Buddhist communities. Some of these debated related to the atmosphere of reconsideration of religion at the time of the May Fourth Movement and other contemporary campaigns, and the context of opposition to—or domestication of—scientific thinking, secularization, and foreign ideologies. Other debates are just legacies from premodern conceptions, and textual and doctrinal interpretations, of xin in the (Chinese) Buddhadharma.83 Often, the character xin assumed semantic distinctions and variations through the compounds it was part of.
The discursive narrative of xin penetrated the private sphere of practice, where it meant a specific stage or approach to the Dharma cultivation; it also contributed to the public sphere, where it defined Buddhist ways to intervene in the “salvation” and construction of the (new) nation.
The early and mid-twentieth century was also a time of renewed interest for the text Dasheng qixin lun
Some of the debates and arguments about xin that informed the Buddhist sphere in the first half of the twentieth century have continued to pervade Chinese and Taiwanese communities to this day. For instance, as Weishan Huang explains in her chapter about Tzu Chi followers in China, the dichotomy zhengxin and mixin is still relevant in the contemporary narrative. Furthermore, the connection between “belief” and “practice” is stressed today as well; in fact, according to Huang’s study, it is the concept of “practice” (xing
These signs of continuity in the understanding and usage of the term xin, naturally with adjustments due to a different historical and political climate, may be explained through the role xin has played within the all history of Buddhism,87 and also, in the specific case of China and Taiwan, through the role played by Buddhists who had been educated in the Republican period and were then active in post-Mao China or post-colonial Taiwan. The late monks Yinshun (1906–2005) and Dongchu (1908–1977), and the living Xingyun
It is especially Yinshun, master and reference figure for the nun Zhengyan and so Tzu Chi, the case study explored by Huang in her chapter, who deserves our attention. Monastics and laity alike consider Yinshun’s book Xue fo sanyao
In contemporary writings, xinyuan
Yinshun’s framing of xin, then, takes some distance from the political and societal discussions carried out in the Republican period (see arguments analyzed in Parts 3 to 5 of this chapter), while it shows continuity with the xin narrative in the sphere of Buddhist practice, and within the dichotomy zhengxin – mixin (see especially Part 2 of the chapter). At the same time, this take on xin has formed the background of contemporary Buddhist movements, like Tzu Chi, and the context wherein the interviews conducted by Huang can be positioned.
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See Tam’s chapter about the meanings of xin in premodern Chinese Buddhism.
See also the argumentation of the editors in the Introductory chapter for more about the possible semantic range and translations of the character xin.
See Krämer’s chapter for the meaning and role of shin
Hayashi 1936, 29–31.
For the term zongjiao and the concept of “religion” in China, see Barrett and Tarocco 2012, Kuo 2010, and Kuo 2020.
Tianran 1934, 5.
Hayashi 1936, 30–31.
Ch: “Xin wei daoyuan gongde mu, zhangyang yiqie zhu shan’gen”
Fazun 1940a, 9–10; Fazun 1940b, 10–12. A strong attack on the serious problem of the clerics disrobing over and over again is included in the same articles.
Nukita Shido 1935, 7–9; Kuwada Yoshizō 1933, 2–5.
Nukita Shido 1935, 9; to quote from the article: “Jinghua zhege shijie. Zhe, zheng shi xin zhi de de liliang”
It is worth noting that these writings use xin interchangeably with the term zongjiao
Nukita Shido 1935, 7.
Kuwada Yoshizō 1933, 2–5.
This is the journal published by the South Sea Buddhist Association (Ch: Nanying fojiao hui; Jp: Nan’e Bukkyō kai
See, for instance, Matsumura Sei 1930a, 31–32, and Matsumura Sei 1930b, 34.
Zhang Weilong 1935, 45–49.
These sources use the terms fojiao
The study of the history of Indian Buddhism became a compulsory subject in the curricula for Sangha education, and also in the new schools for laity like the China Metaphysical Institute (Zhina neixueyuan
See, for instance, Changxing 1930, 39–45, especially the first two sections of the speech, the first one titled “He wei mixin
Changxing 1930, 44–45. Changxing especially emphasized this argument in the third part of his remarks, titled “Shizhen de yuanyou
Huang Heihan 1934, 21.
He Binqi 1935, 38.
See Travagnin 2018; Travagnin and Anālayo 2020.
These are the Buddhist voices that argued the notion of rescuing the nation through the Dharma; Part 3 of this chapter will explore their views.
Hui Puxin 1923, 8–10 (see especially the appendix of this article, titled “Xiyang mixin
See especially the sections “Fojiao zhi xinyang nai zixin er fei mixin
See Zhenhua 1996.
Yongquan 1935, 11–13.
Zhifeng 1928, 13–18. Meanings, functions, and manifestations of xinyang are the last topics of Zhifeng’s long analysis.
Ibid.
For the May Fourth and the anti-religion or anti-Christian movements, see Bastid-Bruguière 2002; Lutz 1988; Tao Feiya 2003; Kuo 2020; Meyer 2015; for Buddhist responses to those movements see Travagnin 2020. For effects and synergy between the May Fourth atmosphere and Chinese religions, see the volume edited by Lu Miao-fen and Paul R. Katz (2020).
For kexue, and the overall concept of science and scientism in Chinese religions, especially Buddhism, see Hammerstrom 2015 and 2020.
Xinjian 1946, 50.
Fafang 1928.
See, for instance, the papers collected in Makeham 2014.
See, for instance, Inoue Jinkichi 1936, 5–6.
See Krämer’s chapter in this volume. As he stated well, Japanese Buddhists were facing challenges coming from outside, yet the reconceptualization of faith and religion should not be seen as a mere reaction to Christianity or a Western imposition, but was instead also result of a debate internal to the Buddhist community.
Fan Gunong 1928, 46–48.
The condition no. 21 reads: “Ji feng fojiao, dangzuo zhengren, yi zheng zhongren, xiushen qijia zhiguo, qiu shijie heping, renmin anle”
We may draw a correspondence here between Yuanying’s explanation of xinxin
From his lecture “Nianfo famen
See, for instance, the following statement from Yuanying 2012b, 180: “Yi fojiao you ci liyi, gu shehui yingdang tichang, guomin ying sheng xinyang
From his lecture “Xie shi zongci jiangyan
From his lecture “Guomin yingjin tianzhi
Taixu 1933, 1.
See also Taixu 1948, 60–61. Taixu gave this talk for the first time in 1932, and later again in 1933. Taixu claimed several associations between Sun Yat-sen’s ideology and Buddhism; for instance, he drew the Three Principles of Buddha (sanfo zhuyi
See also Chen Yongge 2016, 263–287.
See, for instance, Deng Zimei and Chen Weihua 2017, 284–313.
For instance, Cihang counter-argued this point by stating that situations like landmark events in politics, any sort of official meeting, or the opening of a school year are all marked by ceremonial performances, yet may not all be considered mixin.
These lectures were all later published in the third volume of the Cihang fashi quanji
Cihang disagreed by claiming, for instance, that we can see the moon reflected on water, we can see things in our dreams, but we cannot see our eyebrows, nor possibly ever see our grandparents. Therefore, he argued, should we consider the reflection of the moon more real than our own grandparents or eyebrows?
The three religions were Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam; more local Chinese traditions, like Daoism, were not included.
As for the importance of education, let us think of the slogans on the “omnipotence of education” (jiaoyu wanneng
These lectures were all later published in the third volume of the Cihang fashi quanji
See Travagnin 2015, and the chapter by Klein in this volume.
See Klein’s chapter in this volume.
Taixu 1950 [1928]; this is one of the first articles of his where he explained how rensheng fojiao overlapped with KMT ideology, and the definition of the Three Principles of the Buddha (sanfo zhuyi
Katz 2019.
Travagnin 2020.
The following periodicals were established in early 1920s: Xin fohua xunkan
Tang Dayuan 1924a and 1924b; Jiang Tesheng 1927a, 1927b, 1928a, 1928b; Ning Mogong 1927; Jueren 1923. For secondary sources on “Buddhicization” in relation to correct xin, see Hou Kunhong 2018, 153–198.
Dongchu 1974, 140–142.
Dongchu 1974, 9–11.
Dongchu 1975, 15; see also Dongchu 1974, 469–480.
Dongchu 1975, 15; “rensheng bu ke xu’er wu zongjiao de xinyang”
Dongchu 1975, 15.
Dongchu 1975, 16; “fojiao neng bu kexue zhi pian”
For a summary of the history, structure, and activities, see Welch 1968, 77–81. Tang Dayuan (1885–1941), who was a prominent lay Buddhist author of several articles published in Haichao yin and other journals, launched a Buddhist Studies Institute (fojiao jiangxi suo
Information on the foundation, leading principles, and initial committee members can be found in the article Anonymous 1934, 24–27; Lin Chengpo 1935, 35; He Binqi 1935, 38.
Taixu 1925; “shou san gui jishi biaoxian zhengxin fofa zhi juezheng; wei shou sangui ze xin wei biaojue ye”
Among the many articles see Reporter 1932; the first paragraph summarizes the agenda of the society, the roots into Taixu’s ideals, the embedding of Mahāyāna principles, and the goal to save the country and the world (jiuguo jiushi
Anonymous 1921.
Photographic material from Haichao yin
The education programs initiated by Ouyang Jingwu
For more about Lin Delin, his ideology and activities, see Jiang Canteng 2002.
See Krämer’s chapter for the Japanese situation.
Lin Delin 1935, 36. Lin also often referred to the late Japanese Zen teacher Nukariya Kaiten
For more on the Nan’e Bukkyōkai
Those articles often referred to the book Taiwanteki shūkyō
For instance, see Sun Xinyuan 1932; Ye Miaoguo 1931; Zeng Jinglai (Sō Keirai) 1931.
For instance, see the various investigation on local religions that Japanese had been carrying out in Taiwan since the early stages of the colonial period, like the book by Marui Keijirō in 1919.
See the chapter by Tam in this volume.
For instance, see Suzuki 1900, Liang Qichao 1922, but also Yinshun 1951.
See Richards 1907. For a detailed study of the modern interest in this text, including different positions on the reading of xin, see Tarocco 2008. See also Jansen’s chapter in this volume.
See the chapters by Huang and Lüdde in this volume.
See, for instance, Kleine’s argument in his chapter about pre-modern Japanese Buddhism.
See Lüdde’s chapter about contemporary usage of xinyuan.
Very often it is conceived as a merging of three elements and is written as xinyuanxing
Yinshun (1972) came back to xin in other writings, especially, but not only, in his book on comparative religions.