Nanputuo Monastery; Xiamen; Buddhist Networks; Overseas Chinese; Southeast Asia
摘要
The restoration of Nanputuo Monastery (南普陀寺) and the resurgence of the SinoSoutheast Asia Buddhist networks in the recent decades are significant factors in the religion’s revival in Southeast China since the reform and open-door period. Previous studies on Xiamen (廈門) have pointed out the economic vibrancy of this city and its trading networks, as well as the vital connections between the overseas Chinese migrants and their ancestral villages (qiaoxiang 僑鄉). While current literature has shed much light on the commercial and remittance networks, these works have neglected Xiamen’s Buddhist networks across the South China Sea. Given the strategic location of the Nanputuo Monastery in the port city of Xiamen, which was a nodal point of the maritime trading networks and epicenter of Chinese migration, this study reconsiders the religious networks that connected the port city and the Chinese in Southeast Asia.
In this paper, I explore the transregional Buddhist networks connecting Southeast China and the Chinese diaspora from the nineteenth century to 1949. I argue that new patterns of Buddhist mobility contributed to the circulation of people, ideas, and resources across the South China Sea. I show that, on the one hand, Buddhist monks and religious knowledge moved along these networks from China to Southeast Asia, while money from wealthy overseas Chinese was channeled along the networks for temple building in China; on the other hand, Buddhist monks relied on the networks to support China’s war effort and facilitate relocation to Southeast Asia during the Sino-Japanese War.
