http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/csq/index.cfm?
id=26.2. See also the Council of Indigenous Peoples website
(www.apc.gov.tw/en/).Taiwanese Buddhism has been extensively studied by local schol-
ars, with numerous important books and articles by Jiang
Tsann-terng and Lu Hui-hsing. For accounts in English, one
should start with Charles B. Jones, Buddhism in Taiwan: Re-
ligion and the State, 1660–1990 (Honolulu, 1999), as well
as Julia C. Huang, “Recapturing Charisma: Emotion and
Rationalization in a Globalizing Buddhist Movement from
Taiwan,” Ph.D. diss. (Boston University, 2001).
Early research on Taiwan’s Daoist traditions was initially un-
dertaken by scholars like Kristofer M. Schipper and Liu Chi-
wan, but now much of the most important work is being
done by Lee Fong-mao. John Lagerwey’s Taoist Ritual in
Chinese Society and History (New York, 1987) provides a de-
tailed account of Taiwan’s liturgical Daoist traditions, while
Kenneth Dean’s Taoist Ritual and Popular Cults of Southeast
China (Princeton, 1993) contains invaluable information on
their origins and links to communal religious traditions in
the province of Fujian.
A sizeable group of Taiwanese scholars has published in Chinese
on Taiwan’s sectarian movements, including Cheng Chih-
ming, Chiu Hei-yuan, Li Shih-wei, Lin Pen-hsuan, Sung
Kuang-yu, and Wang Chien-ch’uan. Among the most valu-
able studies published in English are David K. Jordan and
Daniel L. Overmyer, The Flying Phoenix: Aspects of Chinese
Sectarianism in Taiwan (Princeton, 1986), and Philip A.
Clart, “The Ritual Context of Morality Books: A Case Study
of a Taiwanese Spirit-writing Cult,” Ph.D. diss. (University
of British Columbia, 1996). See also Clart’s “Confucius and
the Mediums: Is there a ‘Popular Confucianism’?” T’oung
Pao 89, nos. 1–3 (2003): 1–28. Barend ter Haar’s The White
Lotus Teachings in Chinese Religious History (Leiden, 1992)
contains a path-breaking analysis of the historical back-
ground of these movements.
Overviews of the history of Taiwanese Christianity include Hol-
lington K. Tong’s Christianity in Taiwan: A History (Taipei,
1961) and William Jerome Richardson’s “Christianity in
Taiwan under Japanese Rule, 1895–1945,” Ph.D. diss.
(Saint John’s University, New York, 1972), which also con-
tains useful appendices listing the names of all missionary
personnel in Taiwan during the colonial era, as well as an an-
notated bibliography of relevant primary sources. See also
Murray A. Rubinstein’s classic study, The Protestant Commu-
nity on Modern Taiwan: Mission, Seminary, and Church (Ar-
monk, N.Y., 1991). Useful essays on Taiwanese Christianity
may also be found in Daniel H. Bays, ed., Christianity in
China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Stanford,
Calif., 1996), as well as Stephen Uhalley Jr. and Xiaoxin Wu,
eds., China and Christianity: Burdened Past, Hopeful Future
(Armonk, N.Y., 2001).
An impressive amount of research on Taiwan’s communal reli-
gious traditions has been published from the 1960s and
1970s to the present day. Some of the most important early
scholarship was undertaken by Stephan Feuchtwang, David
Jordan, Daniel Overmyer, and Wang Shih-ch’ing. Among
the most representative works of that era are David K. Jor-
dan’s Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors: Folk Religion in a Taiwan-
ese Village (Stanford, Calif., 1972), and P. Steven Sangren’s
History and Magical Power in a Chinese Community (Stan-
ford, Calif., 1987). Important essays were also published in
Arthur P. Wolf, ed., Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society
(Stanford, Calif., 1974), and G. William Skinner, ed. The
City in Late Imperial China (Stanford, Calif., 1977).
More recently, a new generation of researchers led by scholars like
Chang Hsun, Lin Fu-shih, Lin Mei-rong, Mio Yuko, P. Ste-
ven Sangren, Donald Sutton, Robert Weller, and James
Wilkerson has begun to shed additional light on Taiwan’s
communal religious traditions. Some of the most important
publications in English include Allessandro Dell’Orto, Place
and Spirit in Taiwan: Tudi Gong in the Stories, Strategies and
Memories of Everyday Life (London and New York, 2002);
Marc L. Moskowitz, The Haunting Fetus: Abortion, Sexuality,
and the Spirit World in Taiwan (Honolulu, 2001); Meir Sha-
har, Crazy Ji: Chinese Religion and Popular Literature (Cam-
bridge, Mass., 1998); Meir Shahar and Robert Weller, eds.,
Unruly Gods: Divinity and Society in China (Honolulu,
1996); and Donald Sutton, Steps of Perfection: Exorcistic Per-
formers and Chinese Religion in Twentieth-Century Taiwan
(Cambridge, Mass., 2003).
PAUL R. KATZ (2005)TAIXU (1890–1947), Chinese Buddhist reformer, found-
er of the Wuchang Buddhist Institute and the Buddhist jour-
nal Haichaoyin, and active participant in various Buddhist
movements. Taixu’s lay name was Lü Peilin. Born in Hain-
ing in Zhejiang, he became a monk of the Linji school of
Chan Buddhism at the age of sixteen. Buddhist scriptures as
well as the radical political writings of Liang Qichao and oth-
ers inspired him to act for the reformation of Chinese Bud-
dhism. He tried to put his reform programs into practice by
founding the Fojiao Xiejin Hui (Association for the Ad-
vancement of Buddhism) in 1912, but the association was
short-lived owing to opposition from conservative Bud-
dhists. In 1917 Taixu visited Taiwan and Japan. Later, he
established the Enlightenment Society (Jueshe) at Shanghai
with the help of some eminent Chinese. The society orga-
nized public lectures and disseminated knowledge of Bud-
dhism through its own publications. Taixu next made a
preaching tour of several cities in China and in Malaya. In
1920 he founded the Buddhist periodical Haichaoyin. He es-
tablished the Wuchang Buddhist Institute in 1922, the first
modern Buddhist seminary in China. In 1923, Taixu and a
few followers founded the World Buddhist Federation,
which included among its members Inada Eisai and K. L.
Reichelt. Two years later he led the Chinese Buddhist delega-
tion to the Tokyo Conference of East Asian Buddhists. In
1927 he became the head of the Minnan Buddhist Institute.
During that year, he associated with the Chinese Nationalist
leader Chiang Kai-shek, who financed Taixu’s world tour in- The Chinese Buddhist Association was founded by
Reverend Yuanying (1878–1953) at Shanghai in 1929, but
Taixu’s early relation with it was not cordial, though he was
on its standing committee. In 1930 he founded the Sino-
Tibetan Buddhist Institute in Chongqing; this became the
TAIXU 8967