In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Educating Monks: Minority Buddhism on China's Southwest Border by Thomas Borchert
  • Bénédicte Brac de la Perrière
Thomas Borchert. 2017. Educating Monks: Minority Buddhism on China's Southwest Border. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 9780824866488

For some time now, Thomas Borchert's sophisticated perspective on Buddhism has been working its way into the province of Buddhist studies through his papers. His long-awaited book—Educating Monks: Minority Buddhism on China's Southwest Border—brings to light the ethnographic background on which he has built this perspective.

Borchert's field of interest is the form of Buddhism practiced by a Dai minority in Southwest China, the Dai-lue of Sipsongpannā; they practice Theravāda while Mahāyāna is the dominant form of Buddhism in China. From Wat Pajie, the main monastery in Sipsongpannā, where he arrived as early as 1994, his ethnographical journey carries us along to locate the variety of frames in which Dai-lue Buddhism was reshaped following the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Taking Wat Pajie as a departure point and walking in the Dai-lue's footsteps as they pursue a Buddhist education, Borchert travelled to Lamphun and Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand, down to Singapore in Southeast Asia, and finally to Shanghai on the Eastern coast of China. His ethnography is a multi-sited one, in both time and space, which excels at holding together the local, regional, national and international dimensions of the ethno-graphical sites. This multilayered perspective may ultimately be the advantage of having selected a liminal case such as Dailue Buddhism. But it also involves a more general and strong stance. Borchert means to take a broader view on the objects of Buddhist studies, beyond the much-necessary local focus, [End Page 153] arguing forcefully that the modern state has played a central role in the delineation of religion but also that the imagination of Buddhism as a universal has been essential to all contemporary Theravādin formations.

In Sipsongpannā, Buddhism, like other religions in China, was resurrected starting in the eighties under the aegis of state policies. However, Theravāda being a monastic religion, Dailue men have sought ordination from Theravāda monks from other Southeast Asian backgrounds. Driven by the apparently simple question of "What makes a Buddhist monk?", Borchert stresses that although education has long been understudied in Buddhist scholarship, it is central to the monastic institution and to the maintenance of the religion. Borchert's inquiries focus on training processes and institutions at the local level and the cross-cultural experiences of students.

The book is made up of two parts: the first part presents an ethnography of Buddhism in Sipsongpannā, its institutional organization, the governance of religion and the movements of monks in their networks; the second part focuses on education in its various frameworks. Building on the analytical distinction developed by Anne Blackburn, following Charles Hallisey, Borchert examines "apprentice education" in village temples, and "curricular education" in newly-developed Dhamma schools and Buddhist Institutes. He also contrasts the objectives of these institutions in Sipsongpannā to develop a group of propagators of Buddhism and Dai-lue culture, with those of Buddhist transnational education to foster belonging to a larger religious collective.

Borchert is particularly efficient in revealing how the different levels of belonging among the Dai-lue operate, making good use of Aiwa Ong's concept of "flexible citizenship.". Dai identity has come to be equated with the practice of Theravāda Buddhism. Historically, Buddhism was linked to the feudal structures in Sipsongpannā where the local lord (cao) controlled the abbot of the local monastery. Sipsongpannā was only made a part of China in 1897. The local articulation of politics and religion has since been the target of the [End Page 154] Cultural Revolution, a new situation that has shaped the conditions of the "Chinese moments" that Borchert identifies in the formation of contemporary Dai-lue Buddhism.

The administration of religion in contemporary China is framed by the category zongjiao, a neologism that has been forged in opposition to others, such as superstition (mixin). The central government is the ultimate authority in the field, but citizens enjoy freedom of faith within...

pdf