he articles contained in this special issue of Studies in Chinese Religions represent some of the work that has been presented in the seminar ‘Revisiting the Revival: Holmes Welch and the Study of Buddhism in Twentieth-Century China,’ being hosted by the American Academy of Religion at its annual meetings from 2014 to 2018. This seminar aims to bring together scholars of modern Chinese Buddhism to critically assess the impact of Holmes Welch (1924–1981) on our field.1 It is a field that has grown tremendously in the past decade, and most of the papers discussed at the seminar have been presented by junior scholars from China, Europe, and North America; scholars who now make up the majority of those currently working in this area. While there is certainly a great deal of valuable research and fieldwork being done on the Buddhism of contemporary China, the focus of the seminar and this special issue is the history of Chinese Buddhism during the latter part of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century. Scholars of modern Chinese Buddhism, and Chinese history in general, have come to realize that this was a transformative era in Chinese history, and that one could call this period the pivot around which China’s transformation into a modern nation occurred.
The early twentieth century was the central focus for Holmes Welch, particularly in his two books The Practice of Chinese Buddhism, 1900–1950 (1967) and The Buddhist Revival in China (1968). These two works remain the essential anglophone texts for the study of modern Chinese Buddhism, and both have also been translated into Chinese.2 Welch’s writings, and the questions he posed therein, were instrumental in laying the foundations for the study of modern Chinese Buddhism. His vision was far ranging and he addressed each of the major topics in our field, even if only briefly. As one of the participants of the Welch Seminar quipped, whenever you start a new project on modern Chinese Buddhism, the first thing you have to do is check in Welch, and you will probably find at least one footnote on your topic.
There is only one other study published before the late 1990s that holds as prominent a place within the study of modern Chinese Buddhism as Welch’s work does. This is Zhongguo fojiao jindai shi 中國佛教近代史 (A Modern History of Chinese Buddhism), written by the Ven. Dongchu 東初 (1908–1977) and published in 1974.3 He is best known in some circles as one of primary teachers of the famous Chan master Ven. Sheng Yen 聖嚴 (1930–2009). Like his disciple, Dongchu was an accomplished scholar and historian, and, like Welch, the full impact of his academic legacy is in need of assessment. In general, Dongchu covered a greater variety of topics than Welch, and he used different sources than those of Welch. Together, these two men’s works remained the most important comprehensive studies of modern Chinese Buddhism in any language up to the late 1990s. A few works on the topic did appear in Chinese and English in the early 1990s, but the number of works really began to increase steadily around the century’s end.
