dle and thread. Founding and supporting schools and
hospitals is also religiously meritorious. The perfor-
mance of meritorious giving thus creates and strength-
ens the connections between monastic and lay society.
Laity in Mahayana countries
In East Asia ritual merit transfer is the basic motif
structuring the relation between laity and the ordained.
In essence, descendants make gifts to monastics, who
transfer the merit to descendants’ ancestors in order
to ensure them a better REBIRTHor a more comfort-
able existence in the other world. Merit transfer has
also become institutionalized in the mid-summer
GHOSTFESTIVAL, based on the Ullambana-sutra.
A wide variety of devotional practices are performed
by lay Buddhists in China, Korea, and Japan, includ-
ing veneration of such sacred objects as Buddhist im-
ages, relics, and stupas; copying and reciting sutras,
prayers, and formulas; use of Buddhist rosaries, AMU-
LETS AND TALISMANS; pilgrimage; and participation in
cults and rites for particular buddhas and bodhisattvas,
including S ́akyamuni, MAITREYA, AMITABHA, Avaloki-
tes ́vara, Ksitigharba, Bhaisajyaguru, Samantabhadra,
Acala, and others.
Chinese laity formed societies for reciting the Bud-
dha’s name, for study, and for publication as early as
the Six Dynasties (222–589). The tradition of the
learned layman in China had a prototype in Pang Yun
(born ca. 740), “Layman P’ang,” whose Chan sayings
were later collected as Pang jushi yulu(The Recorded
Sayings of Layman Pang). He gave away his house and
sank his possessions in a boat, taking up a wandering
life and studying under several Chan masters, though
not becoming a monk.
A Buddhist revival in the late Ming dynasty
(1368–1644) grew out of a lay movement of provin-
cial gentry, who underwrote the founding of monas-
teries, sponsored the clergy, and enthusiastically
practiced Buddhist devotions. Gentry went on pil-
grimage to Buddhist monasteries, composed poems
about them, and restored them. They corresponded
with monks, attended lectures, chanted Buddhist texts
and the Buddha’s name, and burned incense. They or-
ganized lay associations with names like Lotus Soci-
ety for pure land devotions, or associations for
liberating captive animals. They participated in pub-
lic rites called “Bathing the Buddha” for the Buddha’s
birthday and the Ghost Festival.
During the late Qing dynasty (1644–1911) and the
Republican period (1911–1920), the number of Bud-
dhist lay societies grew rapidly, attracting literati and
bourgeoisie adherents. Merit clubs operated vegetar-
ian restaurants in the cities, and study groups met to
discuss sacred texts or to hear lectures by visiting
monks. Recitation clubs gathered to recite the Bud-
dha’s name in the hope of being reborn in the West-
ern Pure Land. Founded by a Hangzhou businessman
in 1920, the Right Faith Society operated a clinic and
a boys’ primary school, also providing soup kitchens,
free coffins for the poor, and a widows’ home. The
Buddhist Pure Karma Society, founded in Shanghai in
1925, ran an orphanage and a clinic dispensing free
medicine; it also broadcast a nightly radio program.In ancient Korea, lay practice centered on worship
of both Maitreya and Amitabha. Chanting Amitabha’s
name was a central lay practice. Pure land faith was
propagated through Buddhist folk tales from the uni-
fied Silla dynasty (668–935) that were later incorpo-
rated into a history, SAMGUK YUSA(MEMORABILIA OF
THETHREEKINGDOMS, 1285). This work reflects strong
lay participation in Buddhism and also shows that lay
associations were formed around pure land practice.Ancient and medieval Japan exhibited a rich vari-
ety of lay Buddhist practices, including pilgrimage to
famous monasteries and sacred mountains or around
circuit routes devoted to Avalokites ́vara or the histor-
ical Buddhist figure KUKAI (774–835); sponsoring
Buddhist art works and ceremonies; and building or
repairing temples. The Great Buddha statue of Todaiji
in Nara was completed in 752, in part by lay contri-
butions organized by the lay Buddhist En no Ubasoku
(from Sanskrit upasaka).Classical literature is replete with images of laity. In
984 a lay noble, Minamoto Tamenori, completed the
Sanboe(Illustrations of the Three Jewels), an illustrated
collection of Buddhist tales in three volumes, as a guide
to Buddhism for an imperial princess. It included tales
of Japanese Buddhists, the miracles achieved through
their devotions, and stories of meritorious people
whose good deeds produced rewards in this life and
the next.Especially after periods of warfare, many widows
adopted a semimonastic style of life, taking the ton-
sure though not necessarily living in a monastery,
forming societies to commission or repair statues, and
devoting themselves to prayers for the souls of the
dead. Sometimes such women congregated near a
monastery and performed tasks like laundry and food
provisioning for the monks.LAITY