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purely ritualistic activity and to devote a higher proportion of their time to preaching and meditation. For all these reasons and also because of the desire to join forces with the Theravadins in spreading Buddhism in the West, Buddhist exchanges between China and Southeast Asia grew in number during the 1930's, only to be cut off by the Japanese occupation in 1937. In the final two years not only were students sent abroad, but the Chinese donated four sets of the Tripitaka (two for India) and acquired a plot of land to build a Chinese Buddhist temple at Nalanda (the great Indian Buddhist university of the seventh century). A “propaganda group" was organized to correspond and exchange news with Buddhists in the West. In Chinese monasteries there was developing a certain vogue for Theravada practices. For example, in the new Pure Land center at Ling-yen Shan meals after noon were taken in a "room for medicinal eating" rather than in the refectory, and many of the monks who lived there ate only in the morning. It became slightly less uncommon than it had been to observe the summer retreat (vassa), to recite the Pratimoksa twice a month, and to insist that a monk be twenty years old before he took the bhikkhu vows. All these rules had been observed in early Indian Buddhism and perpetuated in the Theravada countries.
Some of the Chinese monks who had gone abroad for Theravada reordination made it a point, when they returned, to wear a saffron robe rather than their usual black, grey, or brown. Since it still had a Chinese cut, it symbolized, as one of them told me, their desire to reunite the two main divisions of Buddhism. Such an ecumenical spirit exemplifies the Chinese instinct to reconcile differences in a higher synthesis rather than to take an exclusive position on one side or another.
Relations with Christians
This instinct can also be seen at work vis-à-vis Christianity. Many Chinese Buddhists regarded Christ as a bodhisattva (a buddha-to-be) whose life and teachings exemplified Buddhist principles.38 Several syncretistic sects had come into being between 1850 and 1950 that purported to combine Buddhism with Christianity and other beliefs. In the mid-nineteenth century when Christian missionaries had begun to appear at Buddhist
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HOLMES WELCH
purely ritualistic activity and to devote a higher proportion of their time to preaching and meditation. For all these reasons and also because of the desire to join forces with the Theravadins in spreading Buddhism in the West, Buddhist exchanges between China and Southeast Asia grew in number during the 1930's, only to be cut off by the Japanese occupation in 1937. In the final two years not only were students sent abroad, but the Chinese donated four sets of the Tripitaka (two for India) and acquired a plot of land to build a Chinese Buddhist temple at Nalanda (the great Indian Buddhist university of the seventh century). A “propaganda group" was organized to correspond and exchange news with Buddhists in the West. In Chinese monasteries there was developing a certain vogue for Theravada practices. For example, in the new Pure Land center at Ling-yen Shan meals after noon were taken in a "room for medicinal eating" rather than in the refectory, and many of the monks who lived there ate only in the morning. It became slightly less uncommon than it had been to observe the summer retreat (vassa), to recite the Pratimoksa twice a month, and to insist that a monk be twenty years old before he took the bhikkhu vows. All these rules had been observed in early Indian Buddhism and per- petuated in the Theravada countries.
Some of the Chinese monks who had gone abroad for Thera- vada reordination made it a point, when they returned, to wear a saffron robe rather than their usual black, grey, or brown. Since it still had a Chinese cut, it symbolized, as one of them told me, their desire to reunite the two main divisions of Buddhism. Such an ecumenical spirit exemplifies the Chinese instinct to reconcile differences in a higher synthesis rather than to take an exclusive position on one side or another.
Relations with Christians
This instinct can also be seen at work vis-à-vis Christianity. Many Chinese Buddhists regarded Christ as a bodhisattva (a buddha-to-be) whose life and teachings exemplified Buddhist principles.38 Several syncretistic sects had come into being between 1850 and 1950 that purported to combine Buddhism with Christianity and other beliefs. In the mid-nineteenth century when Christian missionaries had begun to appear at Buddhist
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