Jane Caple's monograph Morality and Monastic Revival in Post-Mao Tibet explores the resurgence of Geluk monastic Buddhism on the northeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, in Tibetan geographical terms Amdo, which is under the jurisdiction of Qinghai Province in the People's Republic of China. The sixteen monasteries and their supporting communities where Caple conducted ethnographic fieldwork from 2008 to 2015 are situated in Rebgong (Ch. Tongren) and western Bayen (Ch. Hualong)—an ethnically diverse border zone northeast of the Tibet Autonomous Region that has significant Tibetan but also Han Chinese, Muslim, and Mongol populations. Caple's rich material produced through extensive fieldwork and interviews (with eighty-two monastics and fifty-five laypeople) provides an important and critical bottom-up perspective on an exceptional development in Tibet: the revival of Tibetan Buddhist monasticism after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976.
The focus is on monastic economy, and Caple argues from the very beginning that “[i]ssues of monastic economy were, fundamentally, moral issues” (p. 1). The crux of the book is that monastic revival has involved negotiations of moral boundaries in which Tibetan monastics and laypeople “were relating to multiple moral communities imagined at different levels (local, translocal, national, universal)” (p. 9). By looking into these negotiations from the various angles that her interlocutors offered, Caple critically challenges previous scholarship on modern Tibet that commonly focuses on “state-society” relations, arguing that it falls short in explaining the renewal and change that goes on in rebuilding, repopulating, and reviving monasteries: “[T]he workings of state-society power relations cannot fully account for the dynamics of religious and social renewal and change—even in authoritarian and colonial contexts within which religion is highly politicized” (p. 6). This does not mean that Caple denies state presence. On the contrary, she underlines that her research took place during a period of intensified political tension with increased state surveillance and violent crackdowns on mass protests across Tibetan communities in 2008, as well as self-immolation protests since 2009. Yet she does not privilege the state as the main actor in reviving monasticism or relegate Tibetans to peripheral positions where resistance and accommodation are the only options. Instead, Caple unfolds how Tibetans pursue their own projects, defined by their own values and ideals. When monks and laypeople described the restoration of Tibetan Buddhism to Caple, it was not a history of state interventions, support, and policy changes. The state was “largely absent” in their narratives of revival, in contrast to other Tibetan interlocutors’ accounts of destruction where the state was central (p. 29). Caple thus wants to “see beyond the state.”
The first chapter introduces the revival of Geluk mass monasticism in northeastern Tibet, and the resurgence of the historical moral-economic relationship between lamas, monasteries, and communities.
Chapter 2 delves into the reforms of monastic financing beginning in the 1980s, with a move away from alms collection towards self-sufficiency with the development of monastic businesses, which aligns with state policies. Yet Caple contributes a critical examination of the moral dimensions of these reforms and convincingly argues that from the perspective of the monks themselves, the drive for reforms came from within, informed by ideas and practices flowing transnationally (for example, via young monks returning from India); narratives about monastic moral decline; and conceptions of the role of monastics in a Tibetan future.
In chapter 3, Caple addresses tourism, which is an “arena in which Buddhist monastic and state interests can converge” (p. 17). She masterfully uses this as an example of state limitations, because the issue of tourism reveals value conflicts: one monastery exploiting tourism as a resource for monastic development is a model monastery in the eyes of the state, yet in popular Tibetan discourse, the same monastery serves as an admonishment.
In chapter 4, Caple discusses monastic development conditioned within perceptions of monastic moral decline and, at the same time, an increased “significance of the monastery as an idealized moral space, felt to be under threat from assimilation into a ‘Chinese’ modernity” (p. 95). It is in this constellation that a space for reform is created, Caple argues. She skillfully lays out how this is also where the ideal of the monk, as a particular kind of moral subject and as an agent of continuity for Tibetan language and culture, plays a significant role as exemplar and leader.
Retention and recruitment—and the challenges that monasteries face with the dwindling numbers of monastics due to, inter alia, family planning, imaginations of monastic life, and the relative ease of returning to secular life—are discussed in chapter 5. Chapter 6 extends this discussion to the predicament of mass monasticism in a fast-changing society. Here, debates revolve around the role that monasteries play for the survival of the Tibetan people.
Finally, in chapter 8 Caple discusses the notion of moral boundary negotiation, arguing that morality is a dynamic force that produces and defines a space of development opportunities. She argues that the state-society framework cannot account for this, claiming that “state-imposed ‘walls’ and ‘paths’ have little moral force” (p. 158).
Caple's nuanced, careful, and critical discussion of the revival of Geluk monastic Buddhism in Rebgong and western Bayen is not only refreshing because it successfully “sees beyond the state” but also convincing. It is highly recommended. Morality and Monastic Revival in Post-Mao Tibet is a major contribution to a growing body of literature dealing with this region but will likely also appeal to researchers and students of Tibet and China studies generally. Additionally, Caple's discussion of morality successfully introduces this important dimension to the recent surge of scholarship dealing with Buddhism and economy, and will likely be of interest to a readership made up of Buddhist studies scholars and students, as well as those interested in the anthropology of morality.
