Jack Meng-Tat Chia's masterful book Monks in Motion: Buddhism and Modernity across the South China Sea shatters the stereotype of monastic renunciants as avoiding involvement with worldly affairs, using the examples of three famous monks—Chuk Mor, Yen Pei, and Ashin Jinarakkhita—all of whom demonstrated their devotion to the propagation of Buddhism beyond the Mahāyāna territories of twentieth-century Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. The book's value stems from the fact that it looks beyond “Greater China” (mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan) and extends this academic conversation to deeper questions about the nature of Mahāyāna Buddhism at its margins in maritime Southeast Asia. In particular, Chia stakes out his nonmainstream position by highlighting the contribution of Chinese migration to the spread and development of Buddhism in the Chinese periphery and by delineating how his three focal diasporic monks made maritime Southeast Asia “an incubator of Buddhist modernism” (p. 3).
In chapter 1, Chia introduces the rich historical background of Chinese migration from China to maritime Southeast Asia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and how Chinese immigrants played key roles in the importation of folk deities and Chinese Buddhism to that region. This narrative resonates strongly with Jan Nattier's category of “Baggage Buddhism,” which is “deliberately monoethnic in membership at the outset” because it operates not only for religious purposes, but also as a community support network.Footnote 1 Initially, most Chinese monks in the region were poorly educated and served as temple and funeral-ritual specialists for Chinese immigrants. This situation changed in the Malay Archipelago at the end of the nineteenth century with the settlement of several Chinese monks (e.g., Beow Lean, Xianhui, and Pen Ching) who not only had proper monastic training, but also crucially contributed to institutional Buddhism through the building of monasteries. In the final part of this chapter, Chia shows how transnational Buddhist networks between China and Southeast Asia played key roles in the spread of Buddhist modernist ideas, in urban development, and in efforts to resist Japanese invasion.
Chapter 2 provides a detailed account of the life of Chuk Mor, who is widely considered the “Father of Malaysia's Chinese Buddhism” (p. 47). He received monastic education and training in mainland China with many well-known masters, including Taixu; yet, as a Buddhist modernist, he strongly promoted orthodoxy and the deritualization of bereavement in the contexts of Malaysian Chinese customs and practices. In addition, he promoted education for both monastics and the laity by establishing the Triple Wisdom Hall and the Malaysian Buddhist Institute, transforming the religious landscape of postcolonial Malaysia.
Chapter 3 draws on the case of Yen Pei, whose early monastic experience in China—like Chuk Mor's—vitally shaped his contribution to his host country, Chinese- and Buddhist-majority Singapore. Specifically, he imported the humanistic Buddhist ideas of Taixu and Yinshun and promoted various kinds of dharma education as a counterweight to uninformed scripture chanting and blessing seeking. He also became actively involved in elder care, organ donation, and drug abuse prevention in collaboration with local authorities: in short, practicing the bodhisattva spirit in a manner that transformed Buddhism in Singapore.
Chapter 4 focuses on Ashin Jinarakkhita, who is seen as “the first Indonesian-born” bhikṣu (p. 118). He attempted to break the religious category of Buddhism as almost synonymous with Chinese identity in his Muslim-majority country and utilized narratives of Borobudur—an ancient Buddhist site—to legitimize Buddhism's native status. Perhaps most importantly, he established the popular Buddhayānā movement, which combines Mahāyāna and Theravāda traditions, in keeping with Indonesia's national motto, “Unity in Diversity” (p. 132). Later, in response to the policy of Chinese assimilation under the rigidly monotheist Suharto government, Jinarakkhita conceptualized Sang Hyang Ādi-Buddha as “the Buddhist version of almighty God” (p. 145) to ensure Buddhism's survival. While this compromise succeeded in its aim, it also caused tensions amounting to a schism among Buddhayānā monastics.
My minor quibble with this book is that it would have benefited from a more critical examination of the category of “orthodoxy” in modernist discourses that reject heterodox practices arising from Chinese popular customs. It is worth rethinking how “normative” Buddhism is a construct that has never actually existed on the ground, except in rather artificial “reform” situations, such as the “protestant” Buddhist movement in Sri Lanka.
That said, Monks in Motion is a must-read for historians and for scholars in Buddhist studies, Chinese diaspora studies, and transnational studies to delve deeper into the connected histories of Buddhist communities. It will inspire scholars to rethink the development of Chinese Buddhism beyond the Mahāyāna territories.
