Taiwan's Buddhist Nuns

Chapter 1: The Infinite Worlds of Taiwan’s Buddhist Nuns

Chapter 1 The Infinite Worlds of Taiwan’s Buddhist Nuns1 Oral and written sources often describe Taiwan as the tiankong (literally, heaven, or sky) for Buddhist nuns.2 I translate this term as “infinite worlds” for two reasons. First, to indicate that Taiwan is a free and open space for Buddhist nuns’ development, in stark contrast with China where the nuns are “utterly dependent on [the] patrilineal political hierarchy”3 of the Communist party-state and its Buddhist Association. Taiwan’s developed economy and open civil society have directly facilitated the rapid development of Buddhism and the nuns’ order in recent decades. Furthermore, since the end of martial law in 1987, there has been no central Buddhist or government authority in Taiwan, as in China or in other Buddhist countries, controlling ordinations and directing or coordinating the activities of Buddhist monasteries, temples, lay associations, and so forth. Li Yuzhen argues that even at the height of the Buddhist Association of the Republic of China (BAROC)’s influence in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, though it alone administered the ordination system during that time and supposedly had direct access to the Nationalist party-state power structure and its resources, BAROC never completely functioned as a central ecclesiastic authority. Thus, she writes: “In order to understand the consequent vitality of Taiwanese nuns after the 1970s, it is important for us to remember this decentralized structure in Taiwanese Buddhism,”4 in which temples and monasteries are independent, self-administered, and must find their own means of financial support. Second, “infinite worlds” connotes the great variety among Buddhist nuns in Taiwan, to be illustrated later in this chapter. Significant differences exist within each monastic community (according to monastic generation, family and educational background, talents, and temperament), not to mention the differences among monasteries, due to the free and decentralized environment mentioned above. Also, in Taiwan there are monasteries composed only of nuns, or only of monks, as well as mixed-sangha communities.5 The Taiwanese model of the mixed-sex sangha, where monks and nuns worship 7 8 Taiwan’s Buddhist Nuns and work on the same premises, is not found in the orthodox Chinese Buddhist tradition, nor is a mixed-sex sangha found anywhere else in Asia. This unusual arrangement evolved out of special historical circumstances that will be related below. Reconstructing Taiwan’s Buddhist History: Problems and Prospects Scholars in Taiwan have belatedly begun research on Qing-era Buddhist institutional history in Taiwan, having previously focused on twentieth-century developments, especially the post-1949 period and the recent decades of Buddhist revival in Taiwan. However, Buddhist institutions and practices have been an integral part of Taiwan history since the early Chinese settlement of the island. There is a record of Chinese immigration to Taiwan at least from the fourteenth century, and subsequent peaks in immigration occurred around the fall of the Ming dynasty in 1644 and also around 1661 with the arrival of anti-Qing military leader Zheng Cheng’gong. The Zheng family ruled Taiwan for twenty-two years from 1661, the year Zheng Cheng’gong expelled the Dutch colonists from Taiwan, until 1683, when Qing authorities occupied Taiwan and designated it as a prefecture of Fujian province. The Chinese immigrants brought with them their deities such as the Bodhisattva of compassion, Guanyin; the “goddess of the sea,” Mazu; and the “Royal Lords,” wangye, deities capable of preventing plagues and calamities. Qing sources note that during the “Zheng period,” government and local gentry established three Buddhist temples in the Tainan area, and Qing records mention the presence of a few Buddhist monks sent from China.6 The “Zheng period” was also known for its “six eminent Buddhist teachers,” including one laywoman, a member of the ousted Ming royal family.7 In Fu-Ch’üan Hs’ing’s estimation of the Qing historical records, the Qing era “. . . was a period of prosperity for Taiwanese Buddhism” due to political and economic support from the government authorities, literati, merchants, and the populace.8 The Taiwan County Gazetteer of 1720 notes the existence of six Buddhist temples in Tainan and Tainan County, including one Guangci An, possibly a nunnery.9 Thereafter, Buddhist temples were also built in Taipei, Jilong (Keelung), and Xinzhu (Hsinchu), such as Dizang An (1757). Government officials and literati founded some temples, and merchants founded others; donations by non-elite lay believers were crucial, as always.10 Chinese and Taiwanese Buddhist circles maintained constant interaction from the Zheng period on (1661–1683).11...