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Acknowledgments Although I cannot list all of the people whose time and assistance made this study possible, a few stand out as having given crucial help at several points. I wish to thank Prof. Chu Hai-yüan of the Ethnology Institute of the Academia Sinica, whose sponsorship enabled me to reside in Taiwan from 1993 to 1994. Two of my classmates at the University of Virginia, Miss Yang Yih-feng and Miss Huang Yi-hsün, opened doors and helped with perplexities on several occasions. I also wish to thank the monks and nuns of the Xilian Temple in Sanhsia, especially the vice-abbot, Dr. Huimin, and the guest prefect, Huiqian, for their hospitality and willingness to answer my endless questions. Special thanks go also to the teachers and staff of the Fa Kuang Institute of Buddhist Studies and the Chung-Hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies for their help and compassion, especially the Chung-Hwa for allowing me to spend days on end in their storage facilities,rooting through back issues of various Buddhist journals. Dr. Heng Ch’ing of the National Taiwan University Philosophy Department provided much-needed guidance, as did Profs. Lin Meirong and Lu Huixin of the Ethnology Institute of the Academia Sinica,the former for help in understanding zhaijiao, and the latter for pointers in approaching the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tz’u-Chi Association.The monks and nuns of the Nongchan Temple in Peitou also deserve mention, especially Guogu and the abbot, Dr. Shengyan, for their patience with me when I was vii struggling most with the language. And I could not have hoped to complete this study had it not been for the expert language instruction offered by the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Study in Taipei. Xiexie laoshimen! I also benefited from interaction with other Western scholars of religion in Taiwan; and I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Philip Clart and Dr. Paul Katz, and especially to Dr. Marcus Günzel of Göttingen University for his many timely cautions.Dr.John Shepherd of the University of Virginia Anthropology Department also steered me to many sources that helped enormously in contextualizing my study in terms of modern Western scholarship. Financial assistance came from several quarters during the research and writing phases. Funding for fieldwork came in the form of a Dupont Fellowship from the University of Virginia for the 1993–1994 academic session, and a grant (no. SC6811) from the Pacific Cultural Foundation. During the writing phase I was supported by a Skinner Scholarship administered through St. Paul’s Memorial Church, Charlottesville,and a University of Virginia Graduate Arts and Sciences DissertationYear Fellowship. I cannot begin to put into words the incalculable debt of gratitude that I owe to my advisor,Dr.Paul Groner,who has helped me in more ways than I can number. His discipline, academic rigor, and high standards of scholarship set an example that I will spend the rest of my professional career emulating; I am also grateful that his patience, good humor,and friendship made the graduate school process enjoyable and rewarding. I would be less than filial if I omitted to mention my deep thankfulness to my parents and my in-laws for their unstinting support,both material and moral, through the whole graduate school experience. And,finally,there is my dear wife,Brenda.Although dedications to spouses might seem de rigueur in works such as this, there are probably few partners who would have allowed themselves and their children to be dragged halfway around the world and back in pursuit of a dream; and so it is with all my love that I dedicate this work to her. viii Acknowledgments ...

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