Buddhism Revamped for Socialism: The Monastic Economy on Mount Jiuhua from 1949 to 1966

The Decline in the Monastic Population

The Buddhist population on Mount Jiuhua has experienced significant fluctuations since the mid-nineteenth century. It declined significantly during the turmoil of the Taiping Rebellion (1853–1864), recovered somewhat in the ensuing decades, but fell again during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) (Mount Jiuhua Gazetteer Editorial Committee, 1990: 96–102). The early years of the PRC saw another gradual decline.

After 1949, the new regime nominally pledged its support for religious freedom. However, its religious policies remained rather ambiguous, which left considerable room for interpretation at the local level. ³ The dominant state ideology regarded religion as the “opium of the people,” and many local cadres firmly believed that it was a temporary phenomenon that would eventually disappear (Welch, 1972: 4–5; Xue, 2015: 67–115). In a bid to accelerate this supposedly inevitable process, they started to pressure young monastics to disrobe and discouraged Buddhist communities from recruiting any more novices. These laicization campaigns proved quite successful, not least because land reform, the consequent confiscation of monastic properties, and the suppression of certain religious activities, including pilgrimage activities, left many clerics with very little income. They were justified on the grounds that “religious freedom” meant that everyone had the right either to believe or not to believe in religion (Leung, 2005: 898–99). For example, as one document produced by the Qingyang County United Front Work Department (UFWD) claimed:

A few clerics did not enforce the policy of “religious freedom” since they managed to use swindling and bluffing to deceive the masses into ordination, used the followers’ money, and humiliated them to their faces. We should not only frequently educate the clergy about the “policy” but also clarify the freedom to believe or not to believe in religion. (QCA, 1955: 1-145-1)

Understandably, given this stringent interpretation of “religious freedom,” some clerics questioned the government’s commitment to upholding the principle in practice. For instance, when openly airing one’s opinions was temporarily allowed during 1957–1958, a monk named Huide 慧德 complained, “This year, Mount Baohua 宝华山 in Nanjing is going to hold an ordination ceremony, so some people plan to attend. ⁴ However, our government is unwilling to grant us [travel] permits. How is this called ‘religious freedom’?” (QCA, 1958: 1-305-9). Despite such criticisms, the local authorities stood by their decision and refused to permit anyone from Jiuhua to attend the ceremony. Several years earlier, four people had managed to get ordained privately on the mountain (QCA, 1954: 1-146-2), but the number of new recruits was negligible throughout this period, especially when compared with the dozens who opted for laicization (see Table 1). Before 1949, Mount Jiuhua had been home to a total of 258 Buddhist clerics (QCA, 1954: 1-109-1). Thirty members of this community disrobed in 1952 alone, with nine of them subsequently marrying (QCA, 1952: 1-65-1). Indeed, the total Buddhist population had declined by 34 percent by 1953, as a result of forty monastics being laicized, twelve having passed away, and thirty-six with unknown whereabouts (QCA, 1953: 1-110-5). Throughout the rest of the decade, the size of the community remained relatively stable, with a population ranging from 150 to 180. Thereafter, local record-keeping became increasingly sketchy, especially during the years of the Cultural Revolution. ⁵ Immediately after this chaotic period, the total monastic population reached 110 in 1978 (QCA, 1978: 1-670-1). Mount Jiuhua’s status as a sacred mountain meant that its Buddhist communities were able to recover and attract new members once the catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution was over.

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Table 1.

The Buddhist Population on Mount Jiuhua, 1950–1978.

Year *	Total	Number of monks	Number of nuns	Others ‡
Pre-1949	258	N/A	N/A	N/A
1950	200	96	69	35
1951	199	104	95	N/A
1952	187	96	91	N/A
1953	170	73	58	39
Jan. 1954	170	73	58	39
Nov. 1954	175	79	62	34
1955	176	78	78	20
1956	174	75	56	43
1957	154	68	56	30
1958	154	81	73	N/A
1959	164	81	81	2
1961	184	81	103	N/A
1962	190	75	111	4
1964	179	72	101	6
1978	110	N/A	N/A	N/A

Sources: Xiandai foxue, Nov. 15, 1950; QCA, 1951: 1-41-7; QCA, 1952: 1-65-1; QCA, 1953: 1-110-11; QCA, 1954: 1-109-1; QCA, 1954: 1-146-3; QCA, 1955: 1-145-1; QCA, 1956: 1-219-9; QCA, 1957: 1-255-22; QCA, 1959: 1-304-2; QCA, 1959: 1-348-12; QCA, 1964: 1-628-11; QCA, 1978: 1-670-1; Great Dictionary of Mount Jiuhua Editorial Committee, 2000: 603–609.

Notes: *There are several conflicting numbers regarding the total number of clerics before 1949, probably because of various calculation standards and different timings for calculation. The number 258, listed above, is calculated based on the number 170 in 1953, a unified number found in several different archival documents, plus 88 monastics who were said to have been laicized, deceased, or otherwise with whereabouts unknown from 1949 to 1953. The sudden increase in 1961 was attributed to the resettlement of clerics from small monasteries and temples in Anqing in the previous year. The statistics for 1961 and 1962 are taken from the Great Dictionary of Mount Jiuhua rather than the local archives. The former’s appendix gives the total number of Buddhists on the mountain in most of the early years of the PRC, and occasional years thereafter—1950: 230; 1951: 205; 1952: 183; 1953: 167; 1954: 175; 1956: 177; 1961: 184; 1962: 190; 1964: 178; 1982: 109. These figures usually tally quite closely with those in the local archives, with the sole exception of 1950. The total of 200 for that year is taken from the article by the Buddhist leader Yifang that was published in Modern Buddhist Studies, which may be considered a more authoritative source than the Great Dictionary of Mount Jiuhua.

‡

This category includes minors (those under 18 years of age), vegetarian male 斋公 and female 斋婆 practitioners of Buddhism who lived in monasteries but did not shave their heads, and practitioners of other religious traditions, such as Daoism. These statistics cover only those who resided on the front mountain, not those on the back mountain.

During the laicization campaigns of the 1950s, the defrocking of one particular nun caused an uproar. The eighteen-year-old nun Wang Qingzhen 王庆珍 had been raised in a convent under the supervision of a nun named Changjing 常静. A local government report (QCA, 1956: 1-219-7) states that Wang attracted the attention of one of her schoolteachers, Cao Baiyou 曹百佑, who started to pay her frequent visits in the convent. Wang expressed her intention to disrobe in order to marry Cao, but this led to quarrels with Changjing, so the young nun submitted a direct request to the Mount Jiuhua Management Office 九华山管理处 for permission to leave the convent. ⁶ The office secretary rashly approved her request without consulting more senior government officials or other clerics, whereupon the latter complained that Cao did not respect Wang’s Buddhist belief, since he started to pursue Wang when she was still a nun. Therefore, Wang’s laicization contradicted the official policy of “religious freedom.”

In response to increasing discontent among the Buddhist communities, local cadres eventually instructed the office secretary to issue a formal apology to the Conference of Buddhist Delegates 佛教代表大会, handed the case over to the delegates for a decision, and suggested that any official who either deliberately violated or misunderstood the principle of “religious freedom” should be censured and/or reeducated.

This case demonstrates that from 1955 to 1957, when religious policies eased on the mountain, ⁷ clerics had at least some ability to challenge the local authorities’ stringent interpretation of “religious freedom.” However, in general, they found it difficult to resist the tide of laicization throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Consequently, the monastic population started to age and shrink in comparison to that of previous generations.

Attempts to Force Clerics into Farming

From the late imperial period onward, the Buddhist communities on Mount Jiuhua benefited from diverse income streams, including official funding, donations from pilgrims, remuneration for religious services, and land rent. The region’s large monasteries, with hundreds or even thousands of mu of land, enjoyed considerable incomes from all these channels. By contrast, smaller temples with no landholdings tended to replenish their coffers with donations received during the peak pilgrimage seasons—the first, eighth, ninth, and tenth lunar months (Jiang, 1925: 45; Yinguang, 1980 [1938]: 380–81; Mount Jiuhua Gazetteer Editorial Committee, 1990: 150–60).

However, after 1949, both donations from pilgrims and estate rents were condemned by the state as parasitic forms of income. Consequently, the new regime took steps to suppress revenue-generating religious activities and started to confiscate monastic properties. The combined effect made it increasingly difficult for clerics to sustain themselves through traditional means. To deal with the economic difficulties, the government proposed that religious practitioners should transform themselves into self-reliant laborers.

On Mount Jiuhua, national policies were carried out accordingly. The first wave was the confiscation and subsequent redistribution of monastic land during land reform between 1950 and 1953. Subsequently, members of the Buddhist clergy were organized into a series of agricultural collectives: mutual-aid teams (MATs) (1952–1953); elementary agricultural cooperatives (1955–1957); advanced agricultural cooperatives (1957–1958); and people’s communes (1958–1978) (QCA, 1950: 1-17-5; QCA, 1959: 1-348-11). Land reform as a national policy aimed at getting rid of the entire landlord and rich peasant classes and redistributing farmland to landless and land-poor peasants. It was hoped that an increase in agricultural production could help support industrial development. The local cadres on Mount Jiuhua faithfully carried out the policy by confiscating monastic landholdings and redistributing them to nearby peasants, with a small amount of land allocated to clerics for farming. It has been estimated that in 1951 monasteries in the region all together owned about 19.2 mu of self-cultivated paddy fields, 40.2 mu of land for vegetable production, 20.3 mu of barren land, 8.3 mu of land for tea cultivation, and 15 mu for growing bamboo. Among the crops they grew were potatoes, grains, and beans, in addition to rice and tea (QCA, 1952: 1-65-1).

In 1952, as the first step toward wholesale collectivization, 52 clerics living on Mount Jiuhua—two groups of fourteen monks, and two groups of twelve nuns—were ordered into four MATs, which were tasked with growing potatoes in the spring and corn in the autumn as staples. While the team led by a nun named Benjing 本静 was successful because of her experience in farming, the other three failed to meet their targets (QCA, 1952: 1-65-1). The following year, about forty clerics formed another three MATs. According to the archival materials, this mode of production increased agricultural yields and, as a result, those who had previously refused to follow suit now changed their mind and voluntarily participated in production (QCA, 1959: 1-348-11).

After three years of the implementation of the MATs, in December 1955 the Mount Jiuhua Buddhist Elementary Agricultural Production Cooperative 九华山佛教初级农业合作社 was formed with the aim of reducing individual ownership of the means of production. On March 15, 1956, the Buddhist journal Modern Buddhist Studies 现代佛学 published a detailed account of how this new institution came into being (Xiandai foxue, Mar. 15, 1956). The report states that a group of Buddhist representatives were first taught the basics of agricultural cooperatives by local cadres. Armed with this information, they then set up their own cooperative and started to promote it among their peers. According to the report, 70 percent of the mountain’s clergy had agreed to join the “voluntary and mutually beneficial” scheme a mere ten days after its launch. Most of the members’ land was allocated to collective production, with just a small proportion remaining in individual hands for cultivating vegetables.

Accordingly, dividends were calculated on the basis of a combination of labor input and initial investment of land. Around this time, Mount Jiuhua’s annual grain production was only 12,417 kilograms (Honghua yuekan, Feb. 25, 1956) or 71 kilograms per person (i.e., less than half of what was needed for self-sufficiency). ⁸ Nevertheless, at the end of 1957, the elementary cooperative was upgraded to an advanced cooperative. One archival document hints that advanced cooperative dividends were dependent on labor input, regardless of land investment (QCA, 1956: 1-218-2). Local cadres boasted that the new mode of production had already improved the clergy’s standard of living and their individual incomes. It was claimed that around 80 percent of the clergy had invested in the cooperative, with the nun Benjing contributing more than two hundred yuan (QCA, 1958: 1-255-1).

The final stage of the collectivization process arrived a year later with the launch of the Great Leap Forward (1958–1962), when the entire clergy was ordered to join the local peasantry in the Jiuhua People’s Commune. The commune included the separate Jiuhua Buddhist Brigade 九华佛教大队 that was entirely composed of Buddhist clerics (QCA, 1959: 1-348-11). However, the clergy complained that this would mean their few remaining private landholdings would be confiscated; their monastic properties, labor power, and land would be mixed with those of secular peasants; and they would be unable to pursue their religious activities because of compulsory participation in communal farm work. ⁹ In a bid to assuage these concerns and ease the transition to full collectivization, the local cadres agreed to a number of compromises: Clerics’ and peasants’ incomes were to be calculated separately; a vegetarian canteen was to be set up; and clerics were permitted to offer remote landholdings to peasants in exchange for land that was closer to their monasteries. After securing these concessions, all of the clergy reportedly joined the commune “cheerfully.” Thereafter, they effectively became self-sufficient farmers. ¹⁰

Although government publications boasted that collectivization was a roaring success, claiming three- to fourfold increases in yields of rice, potatoes, corn, and yams between 1949 and 1958 (QCA, 1959: 1-348-11), the success was only applicable in a handful of examples. One example was the MAT of the aforementioned nun Benjing, which reportedly harvested a crop of potatoes that was some 30 percent larger than that of a typical single household (QCA, 1952: 1-65-1; Xiandai foxue, Jan. 15, 1954). This generated considerable publicity for Benjing, who was hailed as a model for others to follow both in the early days of collectivization and once again in 1956 (QCA, 1956: 1-219-9). Meanwhile, those who failed to embrace collectivization were derided as “lazy,” with a nun named Chengxiu 诚修—who reportedly ignored the cadres’ exhortations to work harder and even yelled abusively at them—singled out for particular opprobrium (QCA, 1959: 1-348-11). Her case was hardly atypical, though. Prior to 1959, most of the mountain’s clerics preferred to sustain themselves by selling monastic property such as furniture, clothes, and surplus grain rather than joining an agricultural cooperative and committing themselves to a life of physical toil. When the Great Famine came, the agricultural policy led to widespread famine on Mount Jiuhua, just as in the rest of China. ¹¹

The Failure of Collective Farming

Members of the clergy resisted the authorities’ increasingly firm insistence that they should become farmers for a number of reasons: First, they had previously been supported by religious donations from pilgrims; second, they were concerned that work in the fields would make it impossible to observe the Buddhist prohibition against killing; and, finally, they maintained that much of the area should not be considered arable or agriculturally viable (QCA, 1952: 1-65-1).

Donations from pilgrims were one of the main sources of income for clerics on Mount Jiuhua prior to 1949, along with rents from landholdings and fees for religious services. In the Republican era, the four large monasteries (Ganlu 甘露寺, Baisui 百岁宫, Qiyuan 祇园寺, and Dongya 东崖寺), each of which could expect to receive annual rent of around 70,000 to 80,000 kilograms of grain from its landholdings, ¹² still relied on pilgrimage donations as their primary source of income, while those without landholdings were almost entirely reliant on them (Jiang, 1925: 45; QCA, 1950: 1-17-5). Indeed, the monasteries received so much money from pilgrims that from 1909 onward the authorities insisted that some of the funds be used to fund local education (Jiang, 1925: 36).

This reliance on donations meant that Mount Jiuhua’s clergy faced economic hardship when certain religious activities, especially pilgrimage, were suspended in the early years of the PRC. Initially, the local cadres’ response was unsympathetic: they simply argued that the clerics should work for a living and repeated the idea that “laboring is glorious” 劳动光荣. Nevertheless, over time, the new regime relaxed its policies and allowed at least some pilgrims to embark on visits to the country’s most sacred sites. For instance, in 1956 several religious celebrations were held on Mount Jiuhua, including for the Yulanpen Gathering 盂兰盆会 ¹³ and celebrations of Guanyin Bodhisattva’s birthday and Dizang Bodhisattva’s nirvana (see note 7), which together attracted more than two thousand pilgrims (QCA, 1957: 1-255-7). The following year, some nine thousand pilgrims attended similar ceremonies (Great Dictionary of Mount Jiuhua Editorial Committee, 2000: 604). This partial revival of the pilgrimage tradition from 1953 to its peak in 1957 helps explain why many members of the local clergy continued to resist calls to join the labor force, as they received twice as much income from even this depleted number of pilgrims as they did from their agricultural work (QCA, 1958: 1-255-1).

Moreover, agricultural labor invariably involves killing living beings, such as insects and small animals. The pro-laboring slogan “one day without work, one day without a meal” featured in some narratives of Chan Buddhism had become a distant memory by the twentieth century. ¹⁴ For example, according to a report (QCA, 1952: 1-65-1), clerics were reluctant to kill locusts, with one monk, Huizhen 慧真, insisting on chanting Amitabha’s name every time he did so. In response, the local cadres first attempted to educate clerics about the harm that locusts could cause to other living beings, including humans, then simply forced them to eradicate the pests, which resulted in the obliteration of 12.5 kilograms of locust larvae and chrysalises. There is no documentary evidence of the effect that this mass slaughter had on devout clerics like Huizhen, but it is fair to assume that it was traumatic for them.

Regardless of their efforts to promote farming on Mount Jiuhua, the authorities’ plans were almost doomed to fail due to the cold, windy climate, and the lack of fertile soil (Jiang, 1925: 45). Furthermore, there were serious shortages of land, labor, and tools, not to mention that most clerics lacked farming skills. In the 1940s before land reform, the mountain’s monasteries owned approximately 1,200 mu of rentable farmland (including 200 mu near the mountain), 60 mu of self-cultivated paddy fields, and 15 mu of land for vegetable production. After land reform in 1950, all of the rentable land was confiscated and redistributed to nearby peasants, and the clerics were allocated just 14.3 mu of paddy fields, 30 mu of newly cultivated land for growing vegetables (potato and corn included), and a few small parcels of land for the production of tea, bamboo, and timber (QCA, 1951: 1-54-4). The following year, twenty-six MAT monks and nuns cultivated a total of 20.2 mu of land—that is, considerably less than 1 mu per capita—as opposed to the official standard of 1.2 mu per capita (QCA, 1951: 1-54-4; QCA, 1952: 1-65-1). Although the amount of newly cultivated land increased over the course of the decade, there was still not enough to support the clergy. In 1954, the clerics reportedly owned 17.4 mu of paddy fields, 42.4 mu of land for vegetable crops, around 20 mu for growing tea and bamboo, and 20 mu of newly cultivated land (QCA, 1954: 1-109-1). However, it was impossible for them to cultivate some of this land as it was too far away from their monasteries (QCA, 1959: 1-348-11).

With regard to labor, the mountain’s clerics were divided into three categories according to the amount of work they could contribute: full labor power, half labor power, and light or no labor power (see Table 2). The first category consisted of all clerics between the ages of 19 and 36. The second was less well defined: it included those in several age brackets (36–47, 47–56, and over 57) as well as those whose ability to work was limited in some way. Finally, the third category comprised the disabled, the elderly, and those over the age of 47 who were considered “feeble.” Throughout the 1950s, no more than 23 percent of the clergy were classified as possessing “full labor power,” while half or more were in the “light or no labor power” category (QCA, 1952: 1-65-1). Agricultural tools were in short supply, too. When the Mount Jiuhua Buddhist Elementary Agricultural Production Cooperative was founded in 1956, the whole unit owned just one cow, two plows, three harrows, and one chao 耖 (a harrow-like tool) (QCA, 1956: 1-219-9).

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Table 2.

The Three Categories of Labor Power on Mount Jiuhua in the 1950s.

Year	Total number of Buddhists	Full	Half	Light or no
1952	187	27 (14%)	71 (38%)	89 (48%)
1954	175 (167*)	15 (9%)	67 (40%)	85 (51%)
1955	176 (167*)	15 (9%)	67 (40%)	85 (51%)
1957	159	36 (23%)	23 (14%)	100 (63%)
1959	164	26 (16%)	29 (30%)	89 (54%)

Sources: QCA, 1952: 1-65-1; QCA, 1954: 1-146-3; QCA, 1955: 1-145-1; QCA, 1957: 1-279-11; QCA, 1959: 1-348-12.

*

According to the archives, although the total number of Buddhists in 1954 was 175, only 167 were counted when categorizing the three types of labor power. The reason for this is unknown. As for figures in 1955, it seems likely that all were simply copied from the preceding year.

The local cadres devised a number of initiatives to deal with these issues. First, they advised clerics with labor power but little land to form cooperative associations with those with adequate land but insufficient labor power. They also suggested that the clergy should attempt to cultivate barren stretches of the mountain. With regard to the scarcity of labor, they proposed mutual-aid arrangements and even pressured some elderly Buddhists into work. However, while a few elderly clerics, such as Cheng Zhuancui and Huizhen, were praised for their enthusiasm and impressive productivity (QCA, 1951: 1-53-24), ¹⁵ most remained reluctant to till the land. For instance, one 83-year-old nun with poor eyesight who was forced to toil in the fields complained, “It is such a torture that I am still alive at such an old age” (QCA, 1953: 1-110-5). The local cadres were unmoved: the following year, they ordered a group of clerics in their seventies and eighties to collect pinecones by knocking them from trees, which caused widespread disgruntlement among the senior clergy (QCA, 1954: 1-146-3).

None of these enterprises had a significant impact on agricultural productivity on Mount Jiuhua. By the end of the decade, a sizable proportion of the mountain’s clerics could not sustain themselves without government assistance, and the local authorities were reduced to suggesting herb cultivation and apiculture as possible ways to make ends meet (QCA, 1959: 1-348-11).

Buddhists and Steelmaking

In addition, China’s Buddhist communities were expected to support the nation’s heavy industry. At the time, steel production was considered one of the main industrial benchmarks. In 1958, at the height of the Great Leap Forward, the central government called upon every citizen to collect metal objects and melt them down in backyard furnaces as a form of “steel production.” China’s Buddhist communities became the prime target during this campaign because of the unusually large number of metal items they possessed (QCA, 1958: 1-304-7). According to estimations based on the archival materials, each of Mount Jiuhua’s four large monasteries owned between four thousand and five thousand kilograms of metal—mainly in the form of bronze bells, incense-burners, bell clocks, and candlesticks—while even some of the smaller monasteries might possess several hundred or even a thousand kilograms of metal. However, all of these items were regarded as precious “dharma instruments” 法器 by Buddhists, ¹⁶ and even the most ardent cadres were wary of directly confiscating them. Instead, the cadres of the Qingyang County UFWD set about persuading the monasteries to voluntarily donate their metal objects to the steelmaking campaign.

First, on October 14, 1958, the county-level cadres held a meeting with three progressive clerics to explain the importance of supporting the campaign. During this meeting, the monasteries were divided into four categories: seven were classified as “collapsed”; twelve as “unoccupied”; eighty-seven as “occupied”; and eight as “worth preservation.” Next, the cadres and clerics drew up inventories of the monasteries’ metal items, which resulted in a final estimate of some 20,000 kilograms of rusted metal plus unspecified “spares.” ¹⁷ It was then decided that the first two categories of monasteries should donate all of their metal to the steelmaking campaign; that those in the third category should donate all of their spares and rusted items; and that those in the fourth category could retain all of their metal objects, save for the rusted ones. However, the terms “spare” and “rusted” were not properly defined, which would lead to serious issues later in the campaign.

Four days after this preliminary meeting, the county-level cadres and progressive clerics met with a group of monastic leaders in a bid to persuade them to donate the metal in their possession. First, the cadres explained that China’s future depended on increasing the country’s steel production, so it was the duty of every citizen, including clerics, to contribute to the cause. The progressive clerics then expressed their willingness to join the campaign in the hope of encouraging their peers to follow suit. For example:

The nun Benjing 本镜 said, “For the development of socialism, the early liberation of Taiwan, and the fulfillment of our happy life, [I] will donate one large bell and one bell clock, one incense-burner, and several woks, all of which are spares.” The nun Nengde 能德 said, “I will donate a small bell in my temple. Our Buddhist beliefs do not rely on pulling and striking [bells]. As long as we cultivate our minds diligently, we worship the Buddha faithfully [without any need to strike bells].” One monk, Zhenshan 真善, remarked, “I will not only donate all metal items in my temple, but will ensure that others give away theirs in their monasteries.” (QCA, 1958: 1-304-7)

One monk, Xiaowu 晓悟, went so far as to suggest the expropriation of the large incense-burner that stood in front of the Dizang Pagoda, regardless of the fact that this item should have been protected on account of its historic significance. This led the drafter of the report to caution that a few of the progressives had become too radical. Nevertheless, when the cadres established the Committee to Promote the Generous Donation of Copper and Iron 大献铜铁促进委员会, all of the clerics mentioned above were selected as members, with Zhenshan and Xiaowu granted leadership roles. As a result, it was almost inevitable that the “generous donations” would soon mutate into a more coercive campaign.

On October 19, the county-level cadres arranged another meeting, this time with all of the local abbots and senior clerics, during which the former asked the latter to specify the amount of metal items they were willing to donate. Once again, the progressives led the discussion and readily announced their donated items, which prompted the other attendees to volunteer all of their rusted metal objects. The promised metal items, which included 21 large bells, 67 clock bells, 102 incense-burners, 27 refectory gongs, 114 candlesticks, and 80 woks, reached the grand total of approximately 40,000 kilograms. Those present also ratified the nominations of the committee members and assigned each of them a group of targeted monasteries.

However, the support for the scheme was not quite as enthusiastic as the minutes of the meeting implied. Indeed, the official report admitted that most of the clerics adopted a wait-and-see attitude: the progressives waited to see the cadres’ positions, and the other clerics waited to see the progressives’ positions. For example, a monk named Wuguang 悟广 was initially reticent. However, when questioned by others he replied, “You submit yours first, and I will submit mine later. You walk in the front, and I will follow behind.” At first, he offered no more than a few small metal items, but a private tutorial convinced him to add an iron candlestick. Another monk, Kuancheng 宽成, under pressure from his peers, compiled a list of all the metal in his monastery, but he subsequently regretted this and asked if he might keep one bell for his personal use.

In the end, these individual concerns did not prevent the widespread expropriation of monastic property, especially in smaller monasteries located on remote peaks. Several days later, in the stage of collecting metal, some overzealous cadres of nearby communes seized objects that were in daily use at the Laochangzhu 老常住, Xiaotiantai 小天台, and Shuangxi 双溪 monasteries, as well as items of historical significance (QCA, 1958: 1-304-7). ¹⁸

In summarizing the lessons learned from the campaign, the Qingyang County UFWD cadres emphasized in the report that they should warn the commune-level cadres against being overzealous and overly intrusive. They further stated that any donated metal instrument with historical and cultural significance should be returned and preserved immediately. Regarding the incident at the Xiaotiantai, the report claimed that it had been resolved properly without further clarification. As for the incident at the Laochangzhu Monastery that caused widespread disgruntlement among the clergy, the report said they were presently dealing with it. Elsewhere in the report, the cadres had to declare clearly that the government protected “religious belief,” and Buddhism on Mount Jiuhua was within the sphere of protection (QCA, 1958: 1-304-7).

The whole process shows that while the clergy could reach an agreement with the Qingyang County UFWD cadres regarding donating metal instruments, they could not stop cadres of grassroots communes from extorting metal items from their monasteries. Under intense pressure, if not coercion, most of the clerics felt they had no option but to “donate” at least some of their most precious dharma instruments. While the Qingyang County UFWD cadres claimed that they emphasized voluntarism and they iterated the policy of protecting key monasteries and valuable metal instruments, some overzealous cadres of communes at the grassroots nonetheless outright extorted metal instruments from small monasteries. Despite the destructive nature of the campaign, the archives remain silent about how much high-quality steel was successfully produced from the religious items.

Government Relief for Senior Clerics

As we have seen, in the early 1950s, roughly half of Mount Jiuhua’s clerics were categorized as having little to no physical ability to labor (QCA, 1952: 1-65-1). Rather than engaging in manual labor, these (often elderly) clerics survived on gifts from patrons and followers. For example, in 1954, the senior monk Dalong 达隆 from the Shangchantang 上禅堂 Monastery, who had a large number of domestic and overseas disciples, received a remittance of two hundred Hong Kong dollars (around 150 yuan; QCA, 1957: 1-279-11). However, as the new regime tightened its religious policies, it became increasingly difficult and ultimately impossible to obtain financial assistance from abroad. Hence, the government was forced to step in and provide relief to the elderly and disabled clerics, hoping that this largesse would cast the new regime in a more favorable light and help to legitimize it among both Chinese Buddhists and the wider community (QCA, 1953: 1-110-10).

The Qingyang County UFWD started to dispense temporary relief to clerics on Mount Jiuhua in the early 1950s. For instance, in December 1953 it granted four months of relief to a group of impoverished clerics who had suffered significant losses during a violent storm on the front mountain. At the time, the standard relief package was fifteen kilograms of rice per person per month—equivalent to about three yuan each—so the 57 beneficiaries received a total of approximately 684 yuan (QCA, 1953: 1-110-10). ¹⁹ The following year, the same department distributed 83 yuan to seventeen clerics who were unable to work (QCA, 1954: 1-146-3).

There was a further round of government relief in 1956, but on this occasion the authorities acknowledged that most of the 58 recipients required long-term assistance (QCA, 1956: 1-219-9), with age and inability to undertake physical labor being the principal reasons that they were deemed eligible for support. Around half of the beneficiaries were considered too old to work, while the other half suffered from some sort of physical or mental illness. In terms of how much help they needed, roughly 50 percent were assessed as entirely reliant on government support, while the remainder, though having income, were still unable to make ends meet: 20 percent received gifts from their disciples or fellow clerics; another 20 percent depended on stored grains; 10 percent derived modest incomes from agriculture, handicrafts, and/or conducting religious ceremonies; and, finally, approximately 3 percent had received remittances from abroad, most of which had ceased since 1949. The authorities took all of this information into consideration during their calculations and eventually awarded short-term relief to eighteen clerics and long-term relief to the other forty, with each of the recipients receiving three to four yuan per month (QCA, 1956: 1-219-9).

All of these government handouts were warmly received by the mountain’s increasingly desperate clerics. For instance, after taking the delivery of a food package in 1952, a 73-year-old nun declared, “The government genuinely takes good care of us. It demonstrates its great compassion and mercy by sending us food. Amitabha!” Another monk even felt guilty receiving the relief food, saying, “The people’s government led by Chairman Mao is so benevolent to us that we useless Buddhists cannot repay its kindness.” In response, the author of the report suggested that the clerics’ reaction to the government’s religious policies was still “ambiguous” because they did not explicitly agree with the reality that China was now ruled by an atheistic regime (QCA, 1952: 1-65-1).

The local cadres continued to persecute most of the monastic communities by suppressing their religious activities, confiscating their rentable landholdings, and pressuring them to become farmers, even when they were dispensing relief to the neediest in 1952–1953 and 1956–1957. Moreover, most—if not all—of this relief ceased after 1957. As a result, it provided no more than a temporary respite for dozens of elderly and disabled clerics on Mount Jiuhua, who were plunged into unprecedented poverty as a direct result of the new regime’s policies.

Government Funding for the Renovation of Monasteries

The new communist regime viewed those monasteries of historical and cultural significance as “concrete symbols of historic cultural heritage” (Scott, 2020: 188), so it was keen to renovate any that had fallen into a state of disrepair. ²⁰ Most of those on Mount Jiuhua fell into this category as a result of the harsh climate and the lack of maintenance since the start of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937. Indeed, one official report suggested that several were on the verge of collapse (QCA, 1952: 1-65-1). Given Mount Jiuhua’s national and international standing, which was acknowledged by the cadres of the Qingyang County UFWD (QCA, 1957: 1-255-22; QCA, 1958: 1-255-1; QCA, 1958: 1-304-1), it seemed a good opportunity for the new regime to showcase its religious policies. Therefore, the local government was tasked with formulating and implementing a restoration plan.

The process got underway on April 19, 1952, when a group of clerics led by the monk Yifang 义方 (1914–1959) ²¹ filed a detailed report on the state of the mountain’s monasteries to the Qingyang County UFWD. This group also advised the authorities that they had already secured substantial donations from clerics and laypeople in Shanghai that could be used to fund some restoration projects (QCA, 1952: 1-86-2). Yifang proposed a plan to “maintain buildings with buildings” 以屋养屋—that is, dismantling the most dilapidated sections of monasteries and using the reclaimed materials to renovate those that were in better states of repair. ²² He asked the government to organize a special committee to oversee the work, ²³ and attached a fully itemized budget that estimated the total cost of repairing the Dizang Pagoda at 423 yuan within a time frame of forty nonrainy days (QCA, 1952: 1-86-2). Although several monasteries were in need of renovation, the Dizang Pagoda was prioritized because of its prominence in the region’s religious and cultural history. For instance, the monks Liaoyuan 了愿 and Qingding 清定 and the layman You Youwei 游有维, all from Shanghai, specified that their donations, which totaled 550 yuan, should be reserved for its restoration. ²⁴

Six days later, the cadres of the Qingyang County UFWD presented the proposal—along with its own report on the matter—to the higher-level UFWD in Anqing 安庆. In the report, although the local cadres acknowledged that thirty monastic buildings were in a terrible state, they proposed preserving them as historical sites rather than dismantling them, as Yifang had suggested. They also questioned whether it was appropriate to allocate all of the Shanghai donors’ 550 yuan to the restoration of the Dizang Pagoda. A second report that the Qingyang County UFWD sent to Anqing on June 8 confirmed that many of Mount Jiuhua’s buildings were in a state of disrepair (QCA, 1952: 1-86-2).

Little progress seems to have been made over the next four months, until October 14, when another detailed budget was drafted (QCA, 1952: 1-86-2), presumably by members of the Qingyang County UFWD following further consultations with local clerics. ²⁵ This document divided the mountain’s monastic buildings into five distinct categories: (1) The three most important sacred sites 圣地—the Dizang Pagoda, Huacheng Monastery, and Tiantai Monastery—which were the main attractions for pilgrims to the region; ²⁶ (2) the four large “grove” monasteries (conglin 丛林) ²⁷ —Qiyuan, Baisui, Ganlu, and Dongya—which monastic pilgrims used as lodging houses; (3) eleven hostel temples 寮房, which provided lodgings for lay pilgrims; (4) 67 small, private temples 茅蓬/精舍/蓬舍 that were mostly occupied by nuns; and (5) an unspecified number of roadside pavilions 路亭. The budget advocated prioritizing renovations of the three most important sacred sites and the four large grove monasteries and undertaking minor repairs on the rest. It itemized the materials that would be needed (e.g., oil, lacquer, paint, ironware) and calculated the number of working hours for each of the contracted tradesmen (e.g., lacquerer, carpenter) to refurbish twenty-two sites across the five categories. The total cost was estimated at 59,521 yuan.

The Dizang Pagoda was the first building to be renovated. According to Yifang (Xiandai foxue, June 15, 1953), the building’s support beams were about to collapse. Clerics and laypeople volunteered to help with the repairs and the work was completed in three months at a cost of just one thousand yuan, more than half of which was covered by the funds from Shanghai.

One archival source (QCA, 1957: 1-279-11) indicates that the local government eventually allocated a mere nine thousand yuan in April 1956 to renovate the three most important sacred sites and the four large grove monasteries—barely sufficient to repair even half of these buildings. ²⁸ A monk named Jishan 济善 complained about the meager funding and compared it with the “lavish” subsidies that the authorities had provided for the restoration of the Yufo Monastery 玉佛寺 in Shanghai and the Yingjiang Monastery 迎江寺 in Anqing. However, in response to his request for more comprehensive renovations, the local cadres insisted that they were doing as much as they could with limited resources (QCA, 1957: 1-279-11). Another monk, Huide, remained unimpressed, remarking, “The government promised that it would renovate the monasteries, but that was a lie. It merely provided money to fix several key monasteries and waited for the smaller ones to collapse” (QCA, 1958: 1-305-9). Moreover, no further official funding was allocated to Mount Jiuhua restoration projects until 1978. ²⁹

Although Yifang and his peers achieved only limited success in their efforts to restore Mount Jiuhua’s monasteries to their former glory, they displayed an impressive aptitude for fundraising, drafting proposals, and formulating budgets, which obliged the authorities to take them seriously. In response, the local cadres drafted a detailed plan to renovate all of the monasteries that were in a state of disrepair. However, ultimately only those sites that attracted the most pilgrims received some official funding for repairs, while the rest were left to their own devices.

Conclusion

This study sheds some new light on the complicated state–religion relationship in the early PRC and indicates that the interaction between local authorities and clerics involved many local factors. It has demonstrated the ways in which the local authorities saw Buddhist institutions on Mount Jiuhua as economic resources and attempted to integrate them into the economy of a new regime in the early years of the PRC. This involved considerable efforts by the local cadres to gain control over the monastic communities’ tangible and intangible resources—including human capital, land, buildings, religious instruments made of metal, and even cultural and historical status. On the one hand, the authorities used coercive tactics to divert some of these resources toward the region’s agricultural and industrial development, for instance, by encouraging young clerics to disrobe, pressuring the remainder to become farmers, confiscating metal items for steelmaking, and seizing monastic land and redistributing it to the peasantry. On the other hand, there were some attempts to curry favor with the mountain’s Buddhist communities, for instance, by distributing aid packages to elderly and disabled clerics and providing funds for the restoration of the region’s most sacred buildings.

This case study, in addition to confirming Welch’s (1972: 42–83) general observations about the decline of Chinese Buddhism in the first two decades of the PRC, provides more granular details from county-level archives on multifaceted local dynamics. It demonstrates that religious policies were inconsistent and there was still room for the agency of clerics to be exerted. It details how clerics negotiated with county-level cadres and discusses the increasingly stringent policies toward Buddhists on Mount Jiuhua, the worsening financial situations of monasteries, the destructive steelmaking campaign, inadequate government support, and unfulfilled renovation plans at the grassroots.

This study highlights clerics’ agency in state–religion interactions, instead of adhering to the dominant state-control framework (Ashiwa and Wank, 2009b). Before the Cultural Revolution, the Mount Jiuhua clergy exhibited agency in bargaining with the local authorities for more space and autonomy. The nature of their agency was closely related to clerics’ seniority, capability, and faithfulness. Senior clerics, with a strong belief in Buddhism and usually also with wide social networks and generous financial support from followers, tended to exhibit the most agency in dealing with the local cadres. Capable clerics took a slightly different route by entering into negotiations with the authorities and submitting well-crafted proposals that the local cadres could not ignore. Hence, from 1949 to 1966, the Mount Jiuhua clergy gradually learned how to deal with the local authorities skillfully, including interpreting vague economic and religious policies to their advantage and honing their rhetorical words to protect their interests and traditional way of life.

The room for negotiation existed because of Mount Jiuhua’s national and international standing and its value for united front work. For instance, in the early 1950s, Buddhist journals such as Modern Buddhist Studies and Honghua yuekan called attention to any government policies that were implemented on sacred Buddhist mountains, including Mount Jiuhua. ³⁰ Pressure from overseas pilgrims, who were the main objects of united front work, forced the local authorities to provide at least some relief to the mountain’s clerics and ensure that its most important buildings were in a fit state to welcome visitors. Nevertheless, the policies were not sufficient or well executed. Although they lived in a region of high cultural and religious significance, Mount Jiuhua’s clerics still suffered many of the indignities and hardships that the rest of China’s Buddhist communities had to endure in the early years of the PRC and beyond.