Chinese monastics started to become officials during the Later Qin Dynasty （384-393）. The inception of the monitory administrators, Senglu si 僧錄司 was set up in the Sui Dynasty, established formally in the Song Dynasty, and well-established during the Ming and Qing Dynasty. Buddhism, Taoism, and other folk religions were brought to Taiwan by the huge Chinese migration waves led by the Ming loyalist/ general Zheng 鄭 family, and migrants from Fujian and Guangdong Provinces in the late 17th Century. According to the Great Qing Legal Code, the Qing court set up religious officials in Taiwan to regulate monastic registration and religious activities. Other than the Citadel Temples, there are other official temples such as Emperor Guan Temples, Mazu Temples, Buddhist monasteries, Li Alter 厲壇, and Dragon God Temples that made official offerings in all major cities. In addition, the court appointed monastics from Linji and Caodong lineages from Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang provinces to be the abbots in Taiwan to facilitate the construction and spreading of Chinese Buddhism in Taiwan. This contributed to the stabilization and maintenance of the new Taiwanese agricultural society with a high percentage of immigrants. The Qing court followed the Ming regulations in the religious official system in that there was one major Central Buddhist Official and one Central Taoist Official in the court and one Buddhist with one Taoist official in each county, province, and prefecture. This religious official system monitored the religious clergy by issuing religious licenses and requested all religious activities followed the detailed legal codes closely. Furthermore, Buddhist monks needed to broadcast the Emperors’ edicts and were allowed to develop and manage land for their charity and public health services. This paper focuses on two artifacts that strongly substantiate the Buddhist Official system in Taiwan: the stele carved in the Qing Dynasty for Chiayi Citadel Temple, and the newly unearthed sharecropping contracts signed by the monk of the said temple who served as the local Buddhist official. In addition, this paper discusses the logistics of the election of Buddhist officials from the perspective of the recusal system for the first time. The inscription on the stele states that the abbot of the Chiayi Citadel Temple was a monk from Hangzhou, China who fulfilled the household registration recusal regulation and also was appointed as the Buddhist Official of Chiayi. However, the abbot’s Buddhist lineage awaits further research.
