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would not be a recommendation; besides, he does not 'worship' other people's ancestors: he prays for their salvation. The author has overlooked a very important dimension of the cult for the dead, which shows that anthropology and sociology cannot explain all the aspects of phenomena such as these. I refer to the historical dimension. That Buddhist priests and nuns perform services for the deceased is historically conditioned. Ever since the T'ang dynasty, Pure Land Buddhism has had a strong impact on the Chinese population. Scared to be assigned to one of the dreadful courts of hell (or purgatory), devotees wished to be reborn in Amita's paradise (Sukhavati) and in imitation of rituals attributed to Monk Mulien, as expressed in a very popular legend, would ask the Buddhist priests to perform these rituals. Since the Chinese concepts of the after-life drastically changed after contact with Buddhism, and since the Pure Land school enjoyed such a universal popularity, it was only natural that the monks belonging to that school became the specialists in funeral rites. In other words, the custom of Buddhist personnel to perform funeral and memorial rites for the dead in China is not a result of their "leaving home" as the author claims.
To end chapter 3, the author establishes a series of temple types which cuts across the three religions and is based on different criteria, especially particularism vs. universalism. Here again there are great difficulties. The series for one thing is too symmetrical and looks therefore almost like an a priori and artificial construction. To be more specific, however, I feel that in the set of three primary types (group a) the Confucian temples are missing. In the set of derived types (or group b) I do not see the essential difference between the ancestral temples (group a) and the pseudo-ancestral temples. The differentiation between the monastery (group a) and the so-called bone temple (group b) again is arbitrary: bone temples are frequently attached to Buddhist monasteries; and are, in my opinion, just an alternative funeral ground. Families often have their private burial spots or graveyards. After cremation was introduced to China, storage of urns in pagodas became a fashionable way to substitute for graves, but that does not make those 'bone temples' a distinct type of temple. Finally the medium-shrines are also missing, although many of them are real temples, although privately owned.
CHINESE RELIGION REDISCUSSED
157
would not be a recommendation; besides, he does not 'worship' other people's ancestors: he prays for their salvation. The author has overlooked a very important dimension of the cult for the dead, which shows that anthropology and sociology cannot explain all the aspects of phenomena such as these. I refer to the historical dimension. That Buddhist priests and nuns perform services for the deceased is historically conditioned. Ever since the T'ang dynasty, Pure Land Buddhism has had a strong impact on the Chinese popu- lation. Scared to be assigned to one of the dreadful courts of hell (or purgatory), devotees wished to be reborn in Amita's paradise (Sukhavati) and in imitation of rituals attributed to Monk Mulien, as expressed in a very popular legend, would ask the Buddhist priests to perform these rituals. Since the Chinese concepts of the after-life drastically changed after contact with Buddhism, and since the Pure Land school enjoyed such a universal popularity, it was only natural that he monks belonging to that school became the specialists in funeral rites. In other words, the custom of Buddhist personnel to perform funeral and memorial rites for the dead in China is not a result of their "leaving home" as the author claims.
To end chapter 3, the author establishes a series of temple types which cuts across the three religions and is based on different criteria, especially particularism vs. universalism. Here again there are great difficulties. The series for one thing is too symmetrical and looks therefore almost like an a priori and artificial construc- tion. To be more specific, however, I feel that in the set of three primary types (group a) the Confucian temples are missing. In the set of derived types (or group b) I do not see the essential difference between the ancestral temples (group a) and the pseudo-ancestral temples. The differentiation between the monastery (group a) and the so-called bone temple (group b) again is arbitrary: bone temples are frequently attached to Buddhist monasteries; and are, in my opinion, just an alternative funeral ground. Families often have their private burial spots or graveyards. After cremation was intro- duced to China, storage of urns in pagodas became a fashionable way to substitute for graves, but that does not make those 'bone temples' a distinct type of temple. Finally the medium-shrines are also missing, although many of them are real temples, although privately owned.
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