212 CHAPTER EIGHTcreate a peaceful environment for practice, sheltered from affairs of the world
so that affairs of the mind can take on prominence. In the eyes of the Sangha,
the great doctrinal syntheses had already been achieved; effective meditation
techniques had already been pioneered. Thus all that remained was to follow a
path already blazed. We have no way of knowing how many people actually
followed the path, because such pursuits offer few external signs and little of
interest to outside observers. To borrow a phrase from the proverbial Chinese
curse, Buddhism during this period was blest in that it was not living in inter-
esting times.
There were, however, occasional attempts at revitalization, during both the
Ming and the Manchu Ch'ing dynasty (1644-1912). The Pure Land/Ch'an
synthesis during the Ming not only produced figures famous in China, but
also spawned new schools of"Ming Ch'an" in Japan and Vietnam. Perhaps
the most wide-ranging reform during these centuries was the one initiated in
the late nineteenth century, stimulated by the need to rebuild monasteries and
reprint scriptures destroyed in central China during the T'ai-p'ing rebellion
(1850-64). The rebels, fervid Christians, had looted and burned most of the
great monasteries in the areas they occupied. This shocked both monastics
and laity into forming scripture-printing societies and study clubs. Some
young monks who acquired modern ideas through lay-initiated schools
agitated for social revolution (Strong EB, sec. 8. 7 .2) and participated in the
overthrow of the Manchu dynasty in 1911. However, these radicals were
not approved of by the majority of the Sangha, who believed that monastics
should stay out of politics and study the scriptures rather than modern secular
subjects.
The most famous of these radicals was the modernist monk T'ai-hsii
(1890-1947), who set up schools, introduced Western-style classroom instruc-
tion, taught secular subjects and foreign languages (including Tibetan and
Pali), and revived the study of scholastic treatises, especially those of the Fa-
hsiang school. T' ai-hsii was never accepted by the abbots of the great Ch' an
monasteries of central and south China, who held the real power in the Sangha
and who were carrying out their own extensive reforms along traditional lines.
However, he opened relations with coreligionists abroad and promoted the
idea of a world fellowship of Buddhists.
The Nationalist regime in mainland China (1912-49) fluctuated between
mild hostility and mild support for Buddhism, but by and large allowed Bud-
dhists a freedom they had not enjoyed during two and a half centuries of
Manchu rule, when all private associations were under suspicion of treason. In
1930 there were said to be 738,000 monastics and 267,000 Buddhist temples
in China. This was by far the largest clergy in China, or in any national church
in the world. The majority did not live in strictly run monasteries, but at least
fifty thousand did. Although Buddhism was not a prominent force in national
life, Republican China-insofar as it was religious-was more Buddhist than
anything else. Despite the changes sweeping over the country, Buddhist reli-
gious life followed many of the same patterns as it had for centuries.