Special Issue: Chinese Buddhism from Holmes Welch to the Present edited by Gareth Fisher
關鍵詞
Chinese minorities; religion and politics; religion-making; Sipsongpannā; Theravada Buddhism
摘要
Although religious institutions and communities have grown significantly in China since the early 1980s, the recent past has seen difficult conditions for the practice of religion, with increased surveillance and oppressive acts by the Chinese government. Changes to government policies and priorities make it difficult to generalize about the conditions of religious practice over the course of the Reform period. This paper examines the monastic institutions of the Dai-lue people of Sipsongpannā (Xishuangbanna 西雙版納) in Yunnan province. The Dai-lue are a minority group that practices Theravada Buddhism. Their religious institutions have expanded significantly in the last four decades, but they have done so in the midst of radical change in the economic and governing structures of the region. The paper looks at this development both across the forty years of the Reform era, and in the context of a promotion and international conference sponsored by the sangha of Sipsongpannā. I argue that the changes to the monastic institutions of the Dai-lue need to be seen in light of changes to "religion-making from above," the policies, rules, and structures that the Chinese state establishes to manage religious communities, as well as “religion-making from below,” the responses of the Dai-lue to these changes.
儘管自20世紀80年代初以來，中國的宗教機構和社區發展迅速，但最近一段時間，中國政府加大了對宗教活動的監督力度，並採取了一系列的鎮壓行動，這使得宗教活動的開展更為困難。由於政府的政策與工作重點的不斷變化，很難在宏觀上概括改革開放以來宗教活動的情況。本文考察了雲南省西雙版納傣族的僧伽制度。傣族是一個信仰上座部佛教的少數民族。在過去四十年中，該地區的經濟和治理結構發生了根本變化，他們的宗教機構也取得了顯著的發展。本文將這一顯著變化放置於中國改革開放四十年的社會背景中，同時與西雙版納僧伽主辦的國際會議聯繫起來進行研究。我認為，理解傣族僧侶制度的變化，需要從“從上面製造宗教（religion making from above）”以及“從下面製造宗教（religion making from below）”兩個方面來理解。“從上面製造宗教”是指中國政府用來管理宗教團體的政策，規則和結構。“從下面製造宗教”是指傣族對這些政策變化的回應。
