Buddhists to maintain their Chinese identity and tra-
ditions. This period saw the institution of the first fa-
cilities for transmitting the full monastic precepts in
Taiwan. Four monasteries established “ordination
platforms”: The Lingquan (“Spirit Spring”) Chan
Monastery in Keelung, the Lingyun (“Soaring Cloud”)
Chan Monastery on Guanyin Mountain, the Fayun
(“Dharma Cloud”) Chan Monastery near Miaoli, and
the Chaofeng (“Surpassing the Peak”) Monastery in
Kaohsiung County. The leaders of these monasteries
all received ordination at the Yongquan (“Surging
Spring”) Monastery in Fuzhou, China, and they trans-
mitted their tonsure-lineages to Taiwan. Monks and
nuns ordained from these monasteries went forth and
founded other monasteries, giving rise to the “four
great ancestral lineages” that defined and organized
Buddhism during this period.
At the same time, there were small groups of Chi-
nese Buddhist monks who studied Marxism and ad-
vocated the relaxation of monastic discipline as a
means to strengthen solidarity with ordinary people,
while also resisting Japanese domination.
Even as Chinese Buddhism attempted to maintain
its own distinctive identity, it still had to accommo-
date the government; thus clergy and laity joined
together to form Buddhist organizations that func-
tioned as governmental liaisons. The largest of these,
founded in 1922 by Marui Keijiro, was called the
South Seas Buddhist Association, which operated un-
til 1945. These organizations were significant because
they included members of zhaijiao,the “vegetarian
religion”—a form of popular Buddhism that stood
apart from the monastic establishment and rejected its
oversight. Zhaijiao’s participation in these Buddhist
organizations marks the only time in history that they
ever cooperated with monastic Buddhism. In 1945 they
parted ways once again.
The Republican period (1945–present)
At the end of the Pacific War (known as World War
II in the United States), Taiwan was returned to
China, and the Japanese were evacuated. Four years
later, in 1949, mainland China fell to the communists,
and the nationalists fled to Taiwan. All of these events
kept the political and economic situation in turmoil,
and Buddhist clerics experienced difficulty keeping
their monasteries viable. A few refugee Buddhist
monks from the mainland, such as Cihang
(1895–1954), were imprisoned on suspicion of spy-
ing. A few monks of national eminence also arrived,
such as the Zhangjia Living Buddha (1891–1957),
Baisheng (1904–1989), Wuming (1912– ), and YIN-
SHUN(1906– ). They were the leaders of the newly re-
vived Buddhist Association of the Republic of China
(BAROC), and came to Taiwan for reasons that par-
alleled those of the nationalists: to use Taiwan as a
base of operations until they could return home to re-
build Buddhism.
The BAROC mediated between Buddhism and the
government in several ways: The government expected
it to register all clergy and temples, organize and ad-
minister clerical ordinations, certify clergy for exit
visas, and help in framing laws dealing with religion.
The BAROC also confronted the government when it
felt religious interests were threatened. Two notable
controversies concerned the failure of the government
to return confiscated Japanese-era monasteries to reli-
gious use, and the government’s obstruction of efforts
to establish a Buddhist university.
Because the laws on civic organizations allowed only
one organization to fill any single niche in society, the
BAROC enjoyed hegemony until the late 1980s. In
1989 the government stopped dealing with Buddhist
monks and nuns separately, and registered them un-
der their lay names as ordinary citizens. Thus, the
BAROC was no longer needed to certify their status.
That same year, a new law on civic organizations took
effect, abolishing the “one niche, one organization”
rule and opening the way for competition. In the en-
suing period, other Buddhist organizations took root.
Some grew out of preexisting groups, most notably Fo
Kuang Shan and the Buddhist Compassionate Relief
Tz’u-Chi Association. Others were newly founded,
such as Dharma Drum Mountain.Recent changes
Buddhism in Taiwan has undergone many changes
during the last few decades as the island has shifted
from an agrarian, village-based to an industrial, urban-
based society. Four particularly prominent develop-
ments follow.
Historically, monks have predominated numeri-
cally over nuns in Chinese Buddhism. Since the 1950s
the number of nuns in Taiwan has increased relative
to the number of monks: Between 1953 and 1986 the
BAROC ordained 2,030 men and 6,006 women. With
more women than men seeking ordination, women are
much more likely to be eliminated or given longer pe-
riods of testing. This has raised the overall quality and
status of the nuns’ order relative to the monks.TAIWAN