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College Buddhist Studies Societies The Incense Light community experienced its most rapid growth in the 1980s. This reflected broader changes on the Taiwanese religious scene. Scholars have spoken of a “religious renaissance” in Taiwan since the 1980s (Madsen 2007). New Buddhist organizations sprang up such as Foguang, Ciji, Fagu, and Zhongtai , and the activities of folk religions such as the Unity Sect (Yiguan Dao) and the cult of Lord Guan at the Xingtian Gong (Enacting Heaven Temple) flourished as well. Temple complexes were built by increasing numbers of wealthy middle-class believers. These high-profile Buddhist institutions attracted in turn more support by the faithful. Academia Sinica conducted the first Taiwan Social Change Survey in 1985 and has followed with annual surveys since 1990. These surveys track changes in social stratification, family, communication behavior, religion, cultural values, political culture, work, and leisure time. In the 1985 survey, almost half of the individuals interviewed identified themselves as Buddhist . But many of them did not undergo the ceremony of “taking refuge in the Three Treasures.” Therefore, although they called themselves Buddhist, they were not formally lay Buddhists. A better index of the real influence of Buddhism is the number of refuge takers. In the 1990 survey, for instance, while 31.5 percent identified as Buddhist, only 4.5 percent had actually taken refuge. But in the 1995 survey, the respective numbers were 27.2 percent and 5.4 percent, indicating an increase of real lay Buddhists (Chü 1998). Guggenmos found that 87.2 percent of the 440 people interviewed by the survey team in July 2004 selfidentified as Buddhist, and 10 percent either had taken refuge or had a close relationship with a Buddhist master or organization. She called the former “conventional Buddhists” and the latter “specifying Buddhists” (Guggenmos 2010, 50). Another source, the Fu Bao (Welfare news), published by the layman Hong Qisong, reported that in 1988 there were 330,000 Buddhists, representing 17 percent of the population in Taiwan. Moreover, according to this report, most of them were intellectuals and people of the middle class, ranging in age from 25 to 65 (1988, November 5). Taiwanese nuns came from this segment of the general population. About one third of Taiwanese nuns younger than 30 are estimated to have either a diploma from a five-year technical school (three years of high 4 72 • Passing the Light school plus two years of junior college) or a college degree (Li 2000, 270). In the case of the Incense Light nuns, the number was even higher, about four-fifths or 83 percent. What was the ratio of nuns to monks, and how many nuns were there in Taiwan? Based on annual ordination records for both monks and nuns from the years 1953–1987 and 1988–1998, Li Yuzhen came up with the numbers 7,078 and 4,819 for the two periods, respectively. Nuns constituted 75 percent of the monastic population. The number of female ordinands has consistently been greater than that of male ordinands by two to three times since 1987 (Li 2000, 354). According to recent statistics supplied by the Buddhist Association of the Republic of China (BAROC), as of 2008, the number of those who had received the precepts for bhikşu is 5,120, and for bhikşunī 14,967. When one adds the smaller numbers of those who received the precepts for male and female novices, the total monastic population was 20,784 (http://www.baroc.com.tw/cahier-1 . php). This is less than 10 percent of the 225,700 nuns tallied for 1930 (Goossarert 2000, 11–12). But despite their small numbers, the contribution today’s female monastics make to Taiwanese Buddhism is far from slight. There are several reasons highly educated women are attracted to Buddhism . As a result of social and economic changes, more women have the opportunity to receive a college education and become professionals. As one scholar noted, “Education is thus an important social force in altering the lives of women, providing a means for women to realize their potential and advance their status in the family and society” (Jiang 1997, 4). Another source reports, “Advanced education has prompted more independent reasoning and judgment while possession of high-paying jobs has led to greater economic independence” (Yin 1987, 27). With this new sense of independence, a number of women choose not to get married, and thus remaining single no longer carries a stigma. Likewise, becoming a monastic is not only less objectionable...

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