One Could Probably Try to Argue That Taixu 太虛 (1890–1947) Was Not the Most Important Chinese Monk of the Twentieth Century, but It Would Be Hard Going

242 book reviews

Anarchy in the Pure Land: Reinventing the Cult of Maitreya in Modern Chinese Buddhism. By Justin Ritzinger. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. xii + 334 pages. Hardcover. isbn 978-0190491161. us$74.00.

One could probably try to argue that Taixu 太虛 (1890–1947) was not the most important Chinese monk of the twentieth century, but it would be hard going. During his lifetime he wrote extensively on a broad range of topics, founded numerous important institutions, and taught some of the leading Buddhists of the century. He is lauded throughout the Sinophone Buddhist world as a visionary, a reformer, and the creator of Humanistic Buddhism (Renjian fojiao 人間佛教), a broad movement focused on the problems of our world that con- tinues to serve as a central inspiration within Chinese Buddhism. All of this is certainly true, but Taixu was a far more multifaceted thinker, and his involvement with traditional Buddhist thought is far more complex than this picture suggests. In this book, Justin Ritzinger seeks to nuance the accepted view by exploring the lasting impact of radicalism on Taixu’s thought, and the ways in which this manifested itself in his devotion to the Bodhisattva Maitreya. Schol- ars tend to view Taixu’s involvement with radicalism as a short-lived dalliance of youth, and one that had little or no lasting impact on his later Buddhist thought. They also treat Taixu as a nearly secular modernist. Ritzinger argues here that both of these impressions are false. This is a work of intellectual history. Although institutional issues are discussed in passing, the primary goal of this book is to explain the context, development, and enduring legacy of Taixu’s ideas about, and devotion to, Maitreya. While intellectual history is not the only approach used by contemporary scholars of modern Chinese Buddhism, it is a favored one. Here Ritzinger employs it in classical fashion as he analyzes the development over time of the ideas of a single individual, and the impact that contemporary events and trends had on that individual’s thinking. Much of his source material consists of articles from radical and Buddhist journals, and published records of lec- tures given by Taixu. Many of Ritzinger’s sources have only been widely available to scholars for the past decade, and he uses them to tell a story that differs in significant ways from the received history. For example, these sources allow him to correct some aspects of the biography of Taixu articulated by the primary inheritor of his thought, Yinshun 印順 (1906–2004). Taken together, Yinshun’s biographies of Taixu are treated as the definitive statement on who Taixu was, but, as Ritz- inger notes, Yinshun did not have access to all of the documents available to us today. Moreover, Yinshun wrote his works in Taiwan at a time when anything with even a whiff of Communism about it faced censure. This led Yinshun to

book reviews 243 downplay the radical and utopian elements of Taixu’s thought, relegating them to a footnote in the discussion of Taixu’s early years. Just as the ongoing impact of radicalism on Taixu’s thought has been large- ly elided, so too has Taixu’s role in establishing a foundation for the modern veneration of Maitreya and the articulation of spiritual practices centered on Maitreya’s Pure Land. Ritzinger argues that in reinventing the cult of Maitreya, Taixu engaged in a creative reinterpretation of the Chinese Buddhist tradi- tion that should be seen as “modern,” and he draws from the work of Charles Taylor to make this case. Rather than see the turn toward cultic devotion as a reactionary turn away from a secular and this-worldly modernity, Ritzinger says we should see it as one more element of Taixu’s modernism, one that in- volved a complex of negotiation and invention. Not only has the modernism of Taixu’s devotion to Maitreya been ignored, that very devotion itself has been overlooked. As Ritzinger notes, even an authority such as the respected scholar of Taiwanese Buddhism Jiang Canteng 江燦騰 places the origins of modern Maitreya devotion with Yinshun, and not that monk’s teacher Taixu. This book is divided into three main sections, and given the coherence of each, I will summarize the book by section rather than chapter. The first two sections are structured in a similar way: the first half of each focuses on historical context and relevant information from Taixu’s biography. The second half of each of the first two sections contains a careful analysis of several primary sources that support the main focus of that section. This is an effective struc- ture, and each of the sections builds to a clear point. The first section, “Taixu’s Buddhist Radicalism,” begins by telling the story of Taixu’s early life, his en- counter with anarchist socialist thought, and his involvement in radical groups prior to his entry into religious seclusion in 1914. The section then moves into a detailed study of two articles Taixu wrote for radical journals, and one article he wrote for a Buddhist journal during this period. These sources have not received much attention from previous scholars, and Ritzinger goes into great detail in his analysis of the Buddhist dimensions of Taixu’s radical thought. He argues that much of Taixu’s early radicalism centered on the notion of datong 大同, an indigenous Chinese utopian ideal that was being discussed by a wide range of thinkers at the time. The second section, “The Cult of Maitreya,” is the heart of the book. It first traces the formal history of Taixu’s attempt to establish a practical and institutional basis for a Maitreya devotion, from his formal inauguration of the Maitreya School (Cizong 慈宗) in February 1924 to the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. Here, Ritzinger brings to light this enduring thread within Taixu’s personal devotion, framing his discussion in terms of Taixu’s concerns about his own salvation, and his response to changes in the political

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244 book reviews climate. Rather than simply catalog Taxiu’s statements about Maitreya, Ritz- inger constructs a timeline of the development of the contents of that thought. Although Taixu first emphasized Maitreya’s status as the spiritual founder of the Yogācāra School, which was very popular among Chinese Buddhist intel- lectuals at the time, he eventually stressed Maitreya’s role as the teacher for a Pure Land that could, and would be created on this very earth through the working of compassionate Buddhists. After providing this background, Ritz- inger enters into an extended analysis of three texts that Taixu treated as the “Three Essentials of the Maitreya School” (Cizong sanyao 慈宗三要). Drawing on the classical texts themselves, as well as Taixu’s commentaries, Ritzinger shows how Taixu used them to respond to a variety of modern issues, includ- ing Darwinism, scientific epistemology generally, and the ideal ways to reform Chinese society for the good of all people. The third section of the book, “Worlds Closing and Opening,” extends the study beyond the death of Taixu in 1947. Chapter 5 focuses on the period from 1950 to the 1980s. It briefly discusses how, in the People’s Republic of China, even as Buddhism as a whole suffered under the heavy yoke of Communist suppression, radical Maitreyan utopianism was criticized for its commitment to a pacifist revolution, which ran counter to the firm Communist belief in the need for violent class struggle. This is followed with a much more extended discussion of the situation in Taiwan, focusing on the struggle that Yinshun faced during the period of the rising power of conservative Buddhists. The fi- nal chapter brings us up to the present day. It outlines some of the current developments in Maitreya devotion over the last few decades in the prc and Taiwan, and provides a few pages each on various temples and study associa- tions that have focused their attentions on Maitreya. Perhaps the most interesting element of this chapter is the inclusion of the “heterodox” groups Yiguan Dao 一貫道 and Maitreya Great Way (Mile Dadao 彌勒大道). Although Ritz- inger mentions only in passing elsewhere the relationship between Maitreya devotion and the early progenitors of these groups, the so-called redemptive societies of the late Imperial and Republican periods, here he begins to make the case that these groups inherited specific and significant elements of Taixu’s thought. It is an interesting point, and one that deserves to be followed up on. As should be clear from the comments made above, this book is in deep conversation with the scholarship, both Anglophone and Sinophone, on modern Chinese Buddhism. As such, it cannot be read in isolation. It gives enough background on both Taixu and the historical period that the nonspecialist will have some insight into what is going on, but it is not a book for generalists. This book’s greatest contributions are for specialists or those otherwise knowledge- able about modern Chinese Buddhism. Taixu is universally known within the

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Chinese Buddhist world, and almost as universally beloved. This book gives us new insight into the man and frees us from some of the biases that late twentieth-century Chinese politics have imposed on our understanding of him. Its conclusions are significant and break new ground. Although the Mai- treya devotion he promoted in the 1920s and 30s does not appear to have had a lasting impact by itself, it was certainly no less important to Taixu than he himself was to Chinese Buddhism.

Erik Hammerstrom Pacific Lutheran University [email protected]

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