BOOK REVIEWS
169
One of the areas in which we have particularly interesting and new information is that of Buddhist "kinship": one of the principles for organization used by monks and which copies that of the Chinese kinship system to an astonishing degree. Knowledge of this type of organization throws light in turn on the nature of Buddhist sects. Sects are merely a reflection of the number of disciples; if disciples proliferate then the "lineage" tends to divide into new sects; if they dwindle, the sect may disappear. As the author remarks, Westerners accustomed to connexions between sects and doctrines, and Buddhist specialists of Japan where sects have remained exclusive and doctrinal differences preserved, will no doubt find this difficult to accept.
The question of lay commitment is also pursued and the relation of recruited laymen to the monastic "kinship" system. Mr. Welch reveals, in fact, the whole complexity of inter-relationships among monks and laymen in this system and shows that a vast network of connexions existed among Buddhists despite the fact that Buddhism itself had no central leadership. Questions of syncretism are also discussed and the study of Confucian Classics by the monks. The author helps to correct the impression that all monks are illiterate also, by quoting figures from some local surveys conducted by the Communists during the first three years after they came to power.
As the author says himself: "we have... a broad gamut of institutions and men, with the good and the bad "the dragons and the snakes" side by side. The system had room for both piety and commercialism, scholars and illiterates, vice and discipline - all making up a mixture whose components we know, although we cannot assay the proportions in which they occurred”.
Mr. Welch has done much in this work to adjust our perspective on Chinese Buddhist organization. He has already planned a second volume to cover the history of Buddhism. If it is anything like the present work we are in for some refreshing new statements and plenty of surprises.
Hong Kong, 1968.
MARJORIE TOPLEY