In this passage from his seminal 1968 work, Welch identifies something particularly significant about Buddhists in early twentieth-century China: that there were many who conceived of a close relationship between their religious and national identities. This concept manifested itself in a number of ways, from discussions of national crises in Buddhist periodicals to monks enlisting as soldiers in the war with Japan. 2 One of the most prominent people who was intimately involved with the nexus between Buddhism and Chinese nationalism is Dai Jitao (1890-1949). 3 An early political associate of Sun Zhongshan 孫中山 (Sun Yat-sen; 1866-1925), Dai held several positions in the Republican government, including that of head of the Examination Yuan from 1928 to 1949. 4 He was also well-known

1Gregory Adam Scott< http://www. buddhiststudies. net/> is a Ph. D. Candidate in the Department of Religion at Columbia University. Research for this article was supported by a Daniel and Marianne Spiegel Fund Grant from the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and a Faculty Fellowship from Columbia University. I am grateful to the participants in the panel on “Chinese Lay Buddhists in the Early Twentieth Century and the Question of Secularization: Four Case Studies” at the 2009 meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, as well as the two anonymous reviewers for this publication. I also benefited from reading an unpublished paper by Brooks Jessup on Dai’s Buddhism. 2 For one example of the former, see Taixu 太虛,“Chengfo jiushi yu geming jiuguo” 成佛救世與革命救國 in Renjian Fojiao 人間佛教, no. 1 (June 6, 1925), pp. 8-9. Available as reprint in MFQB 66 468-469. For details on how reprint periodical articles are cited in this essay, please see the Bibliography section.