Buddhism Under Mao

Book Summary

From inside dust jacket "Holmes Welch delineates the problem that Buddhism presented to the Chinese Communists and shows how they solved it/ He seeks to answer the broader questions: What happens to religion in a Communist state? And what happens to the men of religion who try to accommodate Communism or even to find in it a chance for religious renewal? Drawing on materials from the Mainland press and on rare pamphlets and journals collected in Japan and Southeast Asia as well as more than a hundred interviews with refugees and visitors to China Mr. Welch has made the most detailed study yet available on the subject. He describes how Buddhist institutions were controlled, protected, utilized and suppressed - in each case so as to serve the needs of foreign and domestic policy. Over eighty photographs illustrate the activities of monks, layman and foreign visitors.... As a Research Associate in East Asian Studies at Harvard University, Holmes Welch worked for over a decade on the trilogy here complete. The proceeding volumes, The Practice of Chinese Buddhism, 1900-1950 and The Buddhist Revival in China (HUP 1967, 1968), dealt with Buddhism in the years before the Communist victory."

Book Details