RAS-1961 — Page 102

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch

RASHKB and author

Vol. 1 (1961)

ISSN 1991-7295

98

BUDDHIST ORGANIZATIONS IN HONG KONG

by

HOLMES WELCH, M.A.

I. INTRODUCTION

Buddhism has a long history in Hong Kong, going back at least to the fifth century A.D., when the monk Pui To1 is said to have set up a hermitage at Castle Peak. A few monasteries claim an antiquity of one or two hundred years. Most were established after the British acquisition of the Colony as a result of its growing wealth and population.

Hong Kong's census-takers have never attempted to discover the number of Buddhist monks, nuns, and their followers, nor has any question on religion been included in the census of 1961. For what it may be worth, the Hong Kong and Macau Regional Centre of the World Fellowship of Buddhists estimates the number of Buddhists in Hong Kong at 500,000, among whom 5,000 are "active, cultured Buddhists who not only believe in the Buddha but also devote themselves in earnest to the study and practice of the doctrines of Buddhism." On the other hand, a monk who has played a leading role in Buddhist organizations here for many years estimates that 100,000 people in Hong Kong are "purely Buddhist", while 1,000,000 are occasionally or partly Buddhist. He puts the ordained monks in the Colony at 250 and the nuns at 1,000. We do know that there are at least 116 monks, 324 nuns, and 3,400 purportedly Buddhist laymen, since these numbers have joined the Hong Kong Buddhist Association. Beyond this, we should not go in appraising the accuracy of the figures given above. Only one generalization seems safe to make: the number of active Buddhist laymen is growing, while the Sangha—or body of monks—is getting smaller.

As to the number of Buddhist institutions in Hong Kong, there are four lay organizations and, according to the list of registered temples, some 68 monasteries and 119 nunneries. Not all the Colony's monasteries and nunneries are on this list, however, and many that are might better be termed "hermitages". Only about nine monasteries and ten nunneries in Hong Kong can be considered "large", if by that is meant having more than ten ordained monks or nuns.

1 Here and below, all romanizations are based on the Cantonese pronunciation. In a few cases, the conventional Wade-Giles romanizations are included in brackets.

* Report from the Hong Kong and Macau Regional Centre, 1954-1956.