CHINESE RELIGION AND RURAL COHESION
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numbers of laymen interested in reform established study centres and even began to take the first five vows of the clergy, conducting some of the religious performances formerly reserved to the priesthood. But this lay-movement flourished mainly in the urban areas.31
One might expect Buddhism as an organization to be more active in towns perhaps. Communications among members would be easier and there would also be more unattached wishing to avail themselves of its facilities. Even today in Malaya the contrast between Buddhist activities in the towns and rural areas is quite marked. In towns the social life of "kinsmen" is very active and includes visits to different establishments on anniversaries of birth and death of "kinsmen"; visiting for "ancestor" worship (part of the rituals of "kinship") and for popular Chinese festivals of the kind which demand family get-togethers. Not only are there many vegetarian halls but there are large numbers of inmates consisting of both those using them as a pied-à-terre during working life and those living in permanently in old age. In the rural areas the numbers attached to vegetarian halls and other establishments based on residence is small, as is the number of such establishments themselves, and the social life much less intense.
In providing a home and other social and economic benefits for those in need, however, Buddhist organization might perform a valuable function in the rural area. For a poor village without any other strong forms of aid for the poor and unattached strong kinship system, well-financed ancestral hall association or temple organization, for example a monastic establishment in the area could draw off some at least of the individuals likely to be most troublesome in village life.
Taoism
We know less of the religious activities and organization of monastic establishments of Taoism and their relation to rural communities in the nineteenth century than in the case of Buddhism, but again the religion is said to have been poorly financed. Where its establishments provided both residence and a professional training they might have recruited, partly at least, from among the poor and unattached as with Buddhist establishments; although some of Taoism's goals for the individual increased physical vigour, super-human skills, and long-life appear from
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