普濟=Pu Ji; 五台山=Wu Tai mountain; 九宮道=Jiugong Dao; 南山極樂寺=Ji Le Temple in the South mountain; 龍泉寺=Long Quan Temple; 啟秀=Qi Xiu; 護道榜文=public apology; 義和團運動=the movement of the Boxer Rebellion of Righteous Harmony; 普濟佛教會=the Buddhist association of Pu Ji
Located in the Ji Le temple (極樂寺) in the South mountain (南山) of Wu Tai mountain (五台山), Master Pu Ji (普濟) and his religious order surfaced in the historical stage in the late Qing Dynasty in China. The influence of his religious order was wildly spread all around the northern part of China, including the Manchuria area. This order was not diminished until the China Communists took over the Mainland in 1949. In terms of the academic researches, the earlier studies showed Master Pu Ji’s personal belief in Buddhism, whereas the recent papers stressed more on the characteristic of his leadership. These scholarsic studies however are not taking epigraph sources into consideration. In this present work, not only these epigraph materials are utilized, but also the religious documents, and the official files. By using these sources, several aspects such as the ordination and the ordination ceremony in this temple, the ways of taking and training the pupils, the evangelizing methods, repairing and adding the improvements to the temple, the relationship with the Boxer Rebellion of Righteous Harmony (義和團), as well as the organization and the philanthropic works of this religious order, are all accounted for.
