Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-k7p5g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T20:10:22.720Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Worry for the Dai Nation: Sipsongpannā, Chinese Modernity, and the Problems of Buddhist Modernism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 February 2008

Thomas Borchert
Get access

Abstract

Over the last thirty years or so, there has been a broad consensus about what constitutes modern forms of Theravāda Buddhism. “Buddhist modernism,” as it has been called, has been marked by an understanding of the Buddha's thought as in accord with scientific rationalism; increased lay participation, particularly in meditation practice and leadership of the Buddhist community; and increased participation by women in the leadership of the Sangha. In this paper, I call into question the universality of these forms by examining a contemporary Theravāda Buddhist community in southwest China, where Buddhism is best understood within the context of the modern governance practices of the Chinese state. Buddhists of the region describe their knowledge and practices not in terms of scientific rationality, for example, but within the ethnic categories of the Chinese state. I suggest that instead of understanding modern forms of Buddhism as a natural response to modernity, scholars should pay attention to how Buddhist institutions shift within the context of modern forms of state power.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 67 , Issue 1 , February 2008 , pp. 107 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Baep-heyn Akkhara [Alphabet Study Book]. 1998. Jing Hong: Wat Pājie.Google Scholar
Bechert, Heinz. 1973. “Sangha, State, Society, ‘Nation’: Persistence of Traditions in ‘Post-Traditional’ Buddhist Societies.” Daedulus 102 (1): 85–96.Google Scholar
Berkwitz, Stephen C. 2006. “The History of Buddhism in Retrospect.” In Buddhism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives, ed. Berkwitz, Stephen C., 1–44. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO.Google Scholar
Blackburn, Anne M. 2001. Buddhist Learning and Textual Practice in Eighteenth-Century Lankan Monastic Culture. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blum, Susan D. 2001. Portraits of “Primitives”: Ordering Human Kinds in the Chinese Nation. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Blum, Susan D. 2002. “Margins and Centers: A Decade of Publishing on China's Ethnic Frontiers.” Journal of Asian Studies 61 (4): 1287–1310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borchert, Thomas. 2005. “Of Temples and Tourists: The Effects of the Tourist Political Economy on a Minority Buddhist Community in Southwest China.” In State, Market, and Religions in Chinese Societies, ed. Yang, Fenggang and Tamney, Joseph B., 89–113. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Borchert, Thomas. 2006. “Educating Monks: Buddhism, Politics and Freedom of Religion on China's Southwest Border.” PhD diss., University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Cohen, Paul T. 2001. “Buddhism Unshackled: The Yuan ‘Holy Man’ Tradition and the Nation-State in the Tai World.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 32 (2): 227–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, SaraLeila, Margaret. 1999. “Singers of Sipsongpanna: Folklore and Authenticity in Contemporary China.” PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Davis, SaraLeila, Margaret. 2003. “Premodern Flows in Postmodern China: Globalization and the Sipsongpanna Tais.” Modern China 29 (2): 176–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, SaraLeila, Margaret. 2005. Song and Silence: Ethnic Revival on China's Southwest Border. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“Document 19: The Basic Viewpoint and Policy on the Religious Question during Our Country's Socialist Period.” In Religion in China Today: Policy and Practice, ed. MacInnis, Donald E., 8–25. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1989.Google Scholar
Duara, Prasenjit. 1995. Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duara, Prasenjit. 2003. Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Giersch, C. Patterson. 1998. “Qing China's Reluctant Subjects: Indigenous Communities and Empire along the Yunnan Frontier.” PhD diss., Yale University.Google Scholar
Gladney, Dru C. 1991. Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People's Republic. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gladney, Dru C. 1994. “Representing Nationality in China: Refiguring Majority/Minority Identities.” Journal of Asian Studies 53 (1): 92–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldstein, Melvyn C. 1998. “The Revival of Monastic Life in Drepung Monastery.” In Buddhism in Contemporary Tibet: Religious Revival and Cultural Identity, ed. Goldstein, Melvyn C. and Kapstein, Matthew T., 15–52. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gombrich, Richard. 1988. Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gombrich, Richard, and Obeyesekere, Gananath. 1988. Buddhism Transformed: Religious Change in Sri Lanka. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Xuezeng, Gong. 1998. Zongjiao Wenti Gailun [Outline of the Religion Problem]. Sichuan: Sichuan Renmin Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Gosling, David. 1992. “Visions of Salvation: A Thai Buddhist Experience of Ecumenism.” Modern Asian Studies 26 (1): 31–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Got-beyp Khuo-haam Pha-phikkhu Samanen Anacak Dai Sipsongpanna [Rules and Regulations for the Monks and Novices of Sipsongpannā]. 1999. Jing Hong: Buddhist Association of Sipsongpannā.Google Scholar
Hallisey, Charles. 1995. “Roads Taken and Not Taken in the Study of Theravada Buddhism.” In Curators of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism under Colonialism, ed. Lopez, Donald S. Jr., 31–61. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hansen, Mette Halskov. 1999. Lessons in Being Chinese: Minority Education and Ethnic Identity in Southwest China. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Heberer, Thomas. 1989. China and Its National Minorities: Autonomy or Assimilation? Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Heikkilä-Horn, Marja-Leena. 1999. “Two Paths to Revivalism in Thai Buddhism: The Dhammakaya and Santi Asoke Movements.” Temenos 32: 93–111.Google Scholar
Hill, Ann Maxwell. 1998. Merchants and Migrants: Ethnicity and Trade among Yunnanese Chinese in Southeast Asia. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Southeast Asian Studies.Google Scholar
Holt, John Clifford. 1991. “Protestant Buddhism?” Religious Studies Review 17 (4): 307–12Google Scholar
Hsieh, Shih-chung. 1995. “On the Dynamics of Tai/Dai-lue Ethnicity: An Ethnohistorical Analysis.” In Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontier, ed. Harrell, Stevan, 301–28. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Information Office of the State Council of the People'S Republic of China. 1997. “Freedom of Religious Belief in China.” http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/topics/3711/t18993.htm [accessed September 24, 2007].Google Scholar
Ishii, Yoneo. 1986. Sangha, State and Society: Thai Buddhism in History. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press/Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University.Google Scholar
Ivy, Marilyn. 2005. “Modernity.” In Critical Terms for the Study of Buddhism, ed. Lopez, Donald S. Jr., 311–22. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, Peter A. 1989. Buddhism, Legitimation, and Conflict: The Political Functions of Urban Thai Buddhism. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katz, Nathan. 2003. “The Modernization of Sinhalese Buddhism as Reflected in the Dambulla Cave Temples.” In Buddhism in the Modern World: Adaptations of an Ancient Tradition, ed. Heine, Steven and Prebish, Charles S., 27–44. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Keyes, Charles F. 1992. Who Are the Lue? Revisited: Ethnic Identity in Laos, Thailand, and China. Working paper, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for International Studies.Google Scholar
Keyes, Charles F. 1993. “Buddhist Economics and Buddhist Fundamentalism in Burma and Thailand.” In Fundamentalisms and the State: Remaking Polities, Economies, and Militance, ed. Marty, Martin E. and Appleby, R. Scott, 367–409. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kindopp, Jason. 2004. “Policy Dilemmas in China's Church–State Relations: An Introduction.” In God and Caesar in China: Policy Implications of Church–State Tensions, ed. Kindopp, Jason and Hamrin, Carol Lee, 1–24. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Kirsch, A. Thomas. 1978. “Modernizing Implications of Nineteenth Century Reforms in the Thai Sangha.” In Religion and Legitimation of Power in Thailand, Laos, and Burma, ed. Smith, Bardwell L., 52–65. Chambersburg, Pa.: ANIMA Books.Google Scholar
Leve, Lauren G. 2002. “Subjects, Selves, and the Politics of Personhood in Theravada Buddhism in Nepal.” Journal of Asian Studies 61 (3): 833–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jing, Li. 2003. “Making the Dai Temple Its Own: Ethnic Tourism, Theravada Buddhism, and Upholding Dai Culture in Contemporary Xishuang Banna, China.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, New York, March 27–30.Google Scholar
Zhaolun, Li, ed. 1983. Daizu Shehui Lishi Diaocha, Xishuangbanna [Historical Research of the Society of the Dai People, Xishuangbanna]. Vols. 2–3. Kunming: Yunnan Minzu Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Yao, Ma. 1988. “The Religion Which Protected the System of Feudal Leadership.” In Thai-Yunnan Project Newsletter 2: 16–21. Trans. Irene Bain and repr. from Daizu Shehui Lishi Diaocha: Xishuang Banna, 2 (1984): 46–50. Kunming: Yunnan Minzu Chubanshe.Google Scholar
McCargo, Duncan. 1999. “The Politics of Buddhism in Southeast Asia.” In Religion, Globalization, and Political Culture in the Third World, ed. Haynes, Jeff, 213–39. New York: St. Martin's Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarthy, Susan. 2000. “Ethno-Religious Mobilisation and Citizenship Discourse in the People's Republic of China.” Asian Ethnicity 1 (2): 107–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarthy, Susan. 2001. “Whose Autonomy Is It Anyway? Minority Cultural Politics and National Identity in the PRC.” PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
McCutcheon, Russell T. 2003. The Discipline of Religion: Structure, Meaning, Rhetoric. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDaniel, Justin. 2006. “Buddhism in Thailand: Negotiating the Modern Age.” In Buddhism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives, ed. Berkwitz, Stephen C., 101–28. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO.Google Scholar
McHale, Shawn Frederick. 2004. Print and Power: Confucianism, Communism, and Buddhism in the Making of Modern Vietnam. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Natchā, Laohasirinadh. 1998. Sipsongphanna: Rat-caarit [Sipsongpannā: A Traditional State]. Bangkok: Thailand Research Fund/Foundation for the Promotion of Social Sciences and Humanities Textbook Project, 2541 BE.Google Scholar
Oakes, Tim. 1998. Tourism and Modernity in China. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Potter, Pitman B. 2003. “Belief in Control: Regulation of Religion in China.” In Religion in China Today, ed. Overmeyer, Daniel L., 11–31. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Princess Maha Chakri Sirinthorn Anthropology Center. 1999 [2542]. Wikrit Puttha Sasana [The Crisis of Buddhism]. Bangkok: SAC.Google Scholar
Reid, Anthony. 1998. “National and Ethnic Identities in a Democratic Age: Some Thoughts of a Southeast Asian Historian.” In Religion, Ethnicity, and Modernity in Southeast Asia, ed. Myung-Seok, Oh and Hyung-Jun, Kim, 11–46. Seoul: Seoul National University Press.Google Scholar
Reynolds, Craig J. 1998. “Globalization and Cultural Nationalism in Modern Thailand.” In Southeast Asian Identities: Culture and the Politics of Representation in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, ed. Kahn, Joel S., 115–45. New York: St. Martin's Press; Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore.Google Scholar
Rhum, Michael. 1996. “‘Modernity’ and ‘Tradition’ in ‘Thailand.’” Modern Asian Studies 30 (2): 325–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rossabi, Morris, ed. 2004. Governing China's Multiethnic Frontiers. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Schein, Louisa. 2000. Minority Rules: The Miao and the Feminine in China's Cultural Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Schober, Juliane. 1995. “Whither the Galactic Polity? The Theravada Buddhist Engagement with Modernity.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 26 (2): 307–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schober, Juliane. 2006. “Buddhism in Burma: Engagement with Modernity.” In Buddhism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives, ed. Berkwitz, Stephen C., 73–100. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO.Google Scholar
Seneviratne, H. L. 1999. The Work of Kings: The New Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Suwanna, Satha-Anand. 1990. “Religious Movements in Contemporary Thailand: Buddhist Struggles for Modern Relevance.” Asian Survey 30 (4): 395–408.Google Scholar
Swearer, Donald K. 1976. Wat Haripunjaya: A Study of the Royal Temple of the Buddha's Relic, Lamphun, Thailand. Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press for the American Academy of Religion.Google Scholar
Swearer, Donald K. 1991. “Fundamentalistic Movements in Theravada Buddhism.” In Fundamentalisms Observed, ed. Marty, Martin E. and Appleby, Scott R., 628–90. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Swearer, Donald K. 1999. “Centre and Periphery: Buddhism and Politics in Modern Thailand.” In Buddhism and Politics in Twentieth-Century Asia, ed. Harris, Ian, 194–228. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Swearer, Donald K. 2003. “Aniconism versus Iconism in Thai Buddhism.” In Buddhism in the Modern World: Adaptations of an Ancient Tradition, ed. Heine, Steven and Prebish, Charles S., 9–26. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tambiah, Stanley J. 1976. World Conqueror and World Renouncer: A Study of Buddhism and Polity in Thailand against a Historical Background. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leshan, Tan. 1995. “Theravada Buddhism and Village Economy: A Comparative Study in Sipsong Panna of Southwest China.” PhD diss., Cornell University.Google Scholar
Leshan, Tan. 2000. “Autonomy Is Not What It Was.” China Development Brief 2 (4). http://www.chinadevelopmentbrief.com/node/242 [accessed September 24, 2007].Google Scholar
Shigeharu, Tanabe. 1988. “Spirits and Ideological Discourse: The Tai Lü Guardian Cults in Yunnan.” Sojourn 3 (1): 1–25.Google Scholar
Taylor, James. 1998. “The Changing Politico-Religious Landscape in Modernizing Thailand: Buddhist Monasticism, the State, and Emergent Hybridities.” In Religion, Ethnicity, and Modernity in Southeast Asia, ed. Myung-Seok, Oh and Hyung-Jun, Kim, 207–30. Seoul: Seoul National University Press.Google Scholar
Chanraeng, Thepprawin. 1998. “Development of Buddhism in Xishuangbanna after the Cultural Revolution in China.” PhD diss., Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University.Google Scholar
Winichakul, Thongchai. 1994. Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Turton, Andrew, ed. 2000. Civility and Savagery: Social Identity in Tai States. Surrey: Routledge Curzon.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tuttle, Gray. 2005. Tibetan Buddhists in the Making of Modern China. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Xuezheng, Yang, ed. 1994. Yunnan Zongjiao Zhishi Bai Wen [100 Questions on Religion in Yunnan]. Kunming: Yunnan Renmin Chubanshe.Google Scholar