僧伽教育=Buddhist monastic education; 佛教經院學=Buddhist scholasticism; 教育人類學=Anthropology of education; 現代佛教的政-教關係=Contemporary Buddhist relationships with government
This is part one of a review of the current state of international scholarship on Buddhist monastic education, which focuses on an account of issues and methodology. Since the 1990’s, studies from both Chinese and international scholars on the subject of Buddhist monastic education have continued to increase. In this article, the author, basing the discussion on the substantial framing principles of issues and methodology, conducts a review of the existing scholarly literature from the postwar period, especially that of the past forty years, to address the state of research on Buddhist monastic education in the Buddhist traditions of India, Tibet, Bali, and other East Asian countries. The article elaborates five points. First, it delineates the academic subject of Buddhist monastic education, its conceptions, problems, and definitions. In the second through the fourth sections, it adopts a perspective oriented towards questions that cut across traditions and, in addressing these three levels, discusses common issues in Buddhist monastic education. Second, itexamines the internal organization of monastic education systems. Third, it explores the relationship between monastic education in Buddhist society and state power and society from two perspectives, the sociology (or anthropology) of education and politico-religious relations. Fourth, it details the transformations that monastic education systems in traditional Buddhist societies underwent after the impacts of modern civilization brought by the process colonial expansion in modern times; this involves exploring questions of the multi-generational response to tensions that have arisen out of monastic education under colonial regimes and anti-colonial Buddhist nationalism, as well as the secularization of government and the counteroffensive of Buddhist fundamentalism. Fifth, in the concluding section, it contrasts the differences between Chinese and international scholarship on Buddhist monastic education regarding their scope, positions, focal points, themes, awareness of issues, methodologies, precedents, and any existent peculiarities in an attempt to indicate the places where Chinese language scholarship can improve our understanding of the subject.
