Date and time：2023／02／18 14:00 Peking/Taipei (06:00 UTC)
Organizer：Peking University
Although increasing lay involvement is considered a common feature of Buddhist modernism, a revolution was also taking place in twentieth-century Chinese monastic education. Reforms to tradition proposed by the likes of Taixu were touted as being a future standard requirement for Saṅghins. While developments in mainland China were disrupted for a generation, in Taiwan continued uninterrupted growth in fertile soil.
Several educational models were established by monastic orders in the latter half of the twentieth century, both during and after the period of BAROC leadership. These typically operated with two levels, in conformity with modern undergrad and graduate studies, yet remained unaccredited by secular authorities, despite most such institutions being open to both ordained Saṅghins and lay students. In the early twenty-first century, changes to secular tertiary educational law allowed accreditation for tertiary Buddhist studies departments.
Several larger Buddhist organizations seized open this opportunity, but also retained their unaccredited institutions, leading to a duplication of monastic education systems. Throughout all these developments, the far older system of ‘triple platform ordination’ continued, relatively unchanged. While Vinaya reformers refined elements of the ordination system, it still serves as a deeper layer of renunciant monastic education distinct from modern educational institutions and lay participation.
Between the multiple layers of ordination, unaccredited and accredited institutions, Taiwanese monastic traditions formulated multiple responses and continue to negotiate the relationship between traditional and modern educational systems. These negotiations should give pause to our theorizing of Buddhist modernity.
