Monastic politics and the local state in China: Authority and autonomy in an ethnically Tibetan prefecture

China Journal

Volumn , Issue 54, 2005, Pages 29-51

  Hillman, Ben ^a  

^a AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AUTONOMY;

EID: 23844497414     PISSN: 13249347     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/20066065     Document Type: Article

References (56)

1. See Jun Jing, Temple of Memories, History, Power and Morality in a Chinese Village (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996).
2. According to the publication Zongjiao tuanti (Religious Groups), in 2003 China was home to 90.5 million Mahayana (Han) Buddhists, 19 million Muslims, 15 million Protestants, 7.6 million Tibetan Buddhists, 4 million Catholics, 3 million Daoists and 2 million Theravada Buddhists. For more details on China's religious revival in general see Donald McInnis, Religion in China Today: Policy and Practice (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1989);
3. Peng Yao, "Zhongguo zongjiao de xin qushi" (New Trends of Religion in China), Shijie zongjiao yanjiu (Studies in World Religions) (March 1995), pp. 19-23;
4. and Arthur Waldron, "Religious Revivals in Communist China", Orbis, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Spring 1998), pp. 323-32.
5. Lily Lee Tsai, "Cadres, Temple and Lineage Institutions, and Governance in Rural China", The China Journal, No. 48 (July 2002), pp. 1-27.
6. Irene Eng and Yi-min Lin, "Religious Festivities, Communal Rivalry, and Restructuring of Authority Relations in Rural Chaozhou, Southeast China", Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 61, No. 4 (2002), pp. 1259-85.
7. Ben Hillman, "The Rise of the Community in Rural China: Village Politics, Cultural Identity and Religious Revival in a Hui Hamlet", The China Journal, No. 51 (January 2004), pp. 27-52.
8. Yoshiko Ashiwa and David Wank, "The Politics of China's Buddhist Revival: Government, Association, and Temple", published in Japanese as "Bukyou Fukou no Seiji Gakku: Kyogo suru Kikou to Seitousei", in M. Hishida (ed.), Gendai chūgoku ni okeru kokka to shakai (State and Society in Contemporary China) (Tokyo University Press, 2000).
9. James Miles, The Legacy of Tiananmen: China in Disarray (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995), p. 181.
10. Tibet is a somewhat ambiguous entity. Today it usually refers to the Tibetan Autonomous Region, although it is sometimes used in reference to the much larger area in which ethnic Tibetans live, incorporating parts of modern-day Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces (ethnographic Tibet). S Monastery is located in one of these provinces outside of the TAR.
11. County records show 1226 monks in residence in 1901. See also Joseph Rock, The Ancient Na-khi of Southwest China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1947), p. 249.
12. Matthew Kapstein has used reliable data to arrive at an approximate figure of 120,000. That means that there are now more Tibetan monks in China than there are Tibetans in exile. See Kapstein's "A Thorn in the Dragon's Side: Tibetan Buddhist Culture in China", in Morris Rosabi (ed.), Governing China's Ethnic Frontiers (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004), p. 230.
13. This is known as the Religious Affairs Bureau in non-ethnic-minority regions.
14. Tibet Autonomous Region monasteries had also been allowed to recruit child monks prior to the 1987-88 protests. The new rule was a punishment for the disturbances. For more details on monasticism in the TAR during this period see Melvyn Goldstein, "The Revival of Monastic Life in Drepung Monastery", in Melvyn Goldstein and Matthew Kapstein, Buddhism in Contemporary China: Religious Revival and Cultural Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 1-45.
15. Tsering Shakya, Dragon in the Land of Shows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), p. 419.
16. During this period monks were forced to undergo 'socialist education' and were strongly encouraged by Party activists to voluntarily turn in their robes and adopt a secular lifestyle. For more on this, see Melvyn Goldstein, "The Revival of Monastic Life,".
17. The China Buddhist Association (Zhongguo Fuojiao Xiehui) is one of eight formally sanctioned religious associations in China. The others represent various other religions.
18. In Chinese, the Tibetan title "lama" is often used interchangeably with the common word for monk, heshan, but there is an important distinction. A lama is a spiritual teacher or guru who attains monastic rank through advanced study of Buddhist philosophy, and is usually recognized as an incarnation. Monks, however, are not educated to this level (many are illiterate) and carry out other tasks in the monastery. The lamas also learn prayers and rituals for officiating at ceremonies. Because of the centrality of lamas and the hierarchical nature of monastic life, the Buddhism practiced by Tibetans, Mongols and other groups such as the Naxi and Pumi is often referred to as Lamaism.
19. The main centers of learning can be found within larger monasteries such as Labrang, but independent centers have sprung up across ethnographic Tibet. The largest of these is the remote Higher Buddhist Studies Institute at Serthar Monastery in western Sichuan founded by Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok in 1980. The institute had 9,300 residents in 2000 before provincial authorities cracked down on its expansion and enforced a student quota of 1,400 (Matthew Kapstein, "A Thorn in the Dragon's Side", and various media).
20. The prefecture serves as an agent of the province in supervising policy implementation carried out by the county. While the county is responsible for most local political decision-making, this prefecture government continues to play a leading role in regional economic development planning.
21. Source: S County government. Because the area is a designated ethnic minority region, fiscal transfers provide for 80 per cent of local government expenses.
22. The geshe examination consists of several grueling days of written and verbal tests and can only be undertaken at one of the main monasteries in Lhasa. For more details on the geshe and the system of authority within Tibetan monasteries, see Martin A. Mills, Identity, Ritual and State in Tibetan Buddhism: The Foundations of Authority in Gelukpa Monasticism (London: Routledge, 2003).
23. According to Beijing Review (19-25 August 1996) p. 21, in the Tibetan Autonomous Region representatives of religious groups occupied 615 such positions at the regional (provincial) level of government and below.
24. Such behavior is not necessarily frowned upon by Buddhists, because financial support is difficult to maintain. In fact, Tibetan monks have a long history of engaging in trade and business activities outside the monastery.
25. As is the Tibetan custom, the abbot would give visitors a string pendant as a symbol of his blessing. Although the abbot was not a tulku, one tour guide explained that the tourists did not know any better - they assumed he was a great holy man because of his impressive offices and because the guides encouraged the mystique.
26. Interviews with tour guides from three companies in June 2004.
27. Estimates from monks and local government officials during interviews in March 2004. This includes donations from tourists, pilgrims, local businesses and overseas Buddhist associations. While not all of this money can be considered income per se, the abbot has discretion over its use.
28. Shugden is sometimes also transliterated as "Shungden" and is known to Tibetans by various names including "Jiachen" and "Derge".
29. According to legend, all manner of calamities befell the Tibetan world after his death and only the most elaborate of rituals could suppress his vengeful spirit. Over the centuries since, the spirit of Dorje Shugden has been invoked by Yellow Hat leaders to suppress the Nyingma and Kagyu sects. See Donald Lopez, Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).
30. The ban extended to office holders in his administration and effectively excommunicated ordinary worshipers who continued to propitiate the spirit. This was followed by a crackdown in several of the main Tibetan monasteries in India. In February 1997 a senior lama close to the Dalai Lama and two of his pupils were slain in a ritual-style killing. The lama was a respected scholar and head of the Buddhist School of Dialectics in Dharamsala and had served as the Dalai Lama's liaison with the Nyingmapas, the sect with which Shugden permits no compromise. No charges were laid but it was widely believed to be an act of retribution by Shugden fanatics. On the Shugden conflict generally, see Donald Lopez, Prisoners of Shangri-La, especially pp. 188-96.
31. On the murders, see Tony Clifton, "Did an Obscure Tibetan Sect Murder Three Monks Close to the Dalai Lama?", Newsweek, 28 April 1997.
32. The specter of Shugden haunts the fourteenth Dalai Lama's political project just as it hindered the political vision of his fifth incarnation more than 300 years earlier.
33. See, for example, Vol. 7, No. 6 of the magazine China's Tibet, in which an article by Wei She ridicules the Dalai Lama's religious intolerance of an "innocent guardian of Tibetan Buddhist doctrine".
34. Interview August, 2004, and Donald Lopez, Prisoners of Shangri-La, pp. 196-200.
35. Examples are the Kumbum and Labrang monasteries. See "Holiday Resort", The Economist, 13 April 1996, p. 32.
36. Interviews with monks, August 2004 and April 2005.
37. Geshe becomes a title for those lamas who have attained the qualification.
38. See the articles in "China's Campaign to 'Open up the West': National, Provincial and Local Perspectives", special issue of The China Quarterly, No. 178 (June 2004).
39. Officials in several township governments told me in 2003 that they were under increasing pressure to ensure that every village in their jurisdiction had a concrete public toilet. See also the case of a model village that arranged for each household to build a toilet before President Jiang Zemin made an inspection tour, in Chen Guidi and Chun Tao, Zhongguo nongmin diaocha (An Investigation into the Chinese Peasantry) (Beijing: Renmin Wenxue Chubanshe, 2004).
40. Not accustomed to modern sewerage systems, Tibetans prefer to keep such amenities a long distance from their living quarters.
41. Interview with officials in the county Civil Affairs Bureau, the agency responsible for implementing and administering village elections (March 2004).
42. Ashiwa and Wank have observed that the Xiamen branch of the Buddhist Association was an active civic association that played a powerful role in the rise of a local temple. A possible reason for the difference is that there are a large number of educated lay Buddhists in Xiamen who were actively involved in the association and who could bring resources and influence to its operations. See Yoshiko Ashiwa and David Wank, "The Politics of China's Buddhist Revival". In Tibetan areas the local Buddhist Associations have been more tightly controlled.
43. Interview, deputy chair, county People's Political Consultative Assembly (April 2004).
44. In their study of local state regulation of Buddhism in Xiamen, Ashiwa and Wank also noted local officials' concern for "maintaining autonomy within their jurisdictions from the central authorities", as their key concern was to "maintain flexibility in legitimating their interests and actions". See Yoshiko Ashiwa and David Wank, "The Politics of China's Buddhist Revival", p. 36.
45. Personal communication with UFWD official, June 2004.
46. Street protests by Tibetan monks and nuns in Lhasa in October 1987, March 1988 and March 1989 resulted in several deaths and the declaration of martial law. See Xu Mingyu, Yingmou yu qiancheng (Conspiracy and Devotedness) (Hong Kong: Mirror Press, 1999), pp. 147-61.
47. See note 17.
48. The bibliographic details of this book are omitted to preserve the anonymity of the locale.
49. Pitman Potter argues that this has been a defining characteristic of the state's relations with religious institutions since the reforms, as state authority in post-Communist China is rooted more in consent than coercion. See Pitman Potter, "Belief in Control: Regulation of Religion in China", China Quarterly, No. 174 (June 2003), pp. 317-37.
50. Interviews with prefecture and county Party officials, June 2004.
51. Adam Yuet Chau, "The Politics of Legitimation and the Revival of Popular Religion in shaanbei, North-Central China," Modern China, Vol. 31, No. 2 (2005), pp. 236-78.
52. Matthew Kapstein, "A Thorn in the Dragon's Side".
53. Tibetan independence advocates have typically laid claim to a much larger area incorporating the ethnic Tibetan parts of other Chinese provinces. China's Tibetan Autonomous Region is, however, seen as the heart of that nation.
54. Cited in James Miles, The Legacy of Tiananmen, p. 181.
55. "Governance" is an overused and potentially vague term. Here I use it to refer to the general management of society's affairs, including both formal government and social organizations that distribute resources and manage conflict. A useful discussion of the term in this and other usages can be found in the introduction to Jon Pierre and B. Guy Peters, Governance, Politics and the State (London: Macmillan, 2000).
56. The local proprietor of a building supplies company told me that he regularly passed on monastery "concerns" of which he was aware to his own friends in the government.