The history of Sangha education in China is a multifaceted domain that includes shifts from translation and exegetical reading to the study of secular subjects, from individual lecturing to structured multi-year curricula, from monastery-based private schools to a system of academies built under an overall national Buddhist association.
Those shifts and continuities in the historical development of Buddhist education are result of the diachronic inner evolution within Chinese Buddhism, but also need to be addressed through the analysis of the synchronic interaction between Buddhist communities and the education practices of the other religious groups in China, and of the exchanges between Chinese Buddhists and other non-Chinese Buddhist worlds.
The shifts in the education systems and policies also reflected national political changes and transformations within the sphere of Chinese secular education, and implied a reshaping of the social role that those religious specialists are asked to play. And the changes in institutions, policies, and curricula have been paralleled by the revisions of terms that label various elements in the education sector.
My research has produced a critical analysis of the transformations in education policies and the history of the ideas of learning, education, and pedagogy, which unfolded in the study of different conceptual terms – such as xue 學 and jiaoyu 教育 – and institution names – such as xueshe 學社, xuetang 學堂, foxueyuan 佛學院 – that are found in the Chinese Buddhist context. I have addressed the changes of the conceptual and institutional naming that took place in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in China and Taiwan, underlined the Buddhist and secular factors that led to such naming, and questioned the effects of the renewed concepts on religious practice. I have published on general issues on Buddhist education in modern China, as well as case studies on specific schools and leaders. Finally, I have also proposed methodological suggestions for advancing the study of religious education, and suggested to go beyond the paradigms that have defined the historical narrative so far, and adopt the study of networks as a new leading path.
Publications
Sample recent publications include: “Concepts and Institutions for a New Buddhist Education: Reforming the Sangha Between and Within State Agencies” (East Asian History 39 (2014): 88-101); “The Impact of Politics on the Minnan Buddhist Institute: sanmin zhuyi 三民主义 and aiguo zhuyi 爱国主义 in the Sangha education context” (Review of Religion and Chinese Society 2, no.1 (2015): 21-50); “Houguan – a Modern Educator in Taiwan” (in Figures of Buddhist Modernity in Asia, edited by Justin McDaniel, Mark Rowe, and Jeffrey Samuels, 91-94, Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2016); “Buddhist Education between Tradition, Modernity and Networks: Reconsidering the ‘Revival’ of Education for the Saṅgha in Twentieth-century China” (Studies in Chinese Religions 3, no.3 (2017): 220-241); “中國與臺灣佛教界的五四因緣──以1910-1930年代為考察重點” (in 五四運動與中國宗教的調適與發展 , edited by Paul R. Katz (康豹) and 呂妙芬, 547-577, Taipei: Academia Sinica, 2020); “From xue 學 to jiaoyu 教育: Conceptual Understanding of ‘Education’ in Modern Chinese Buddhism” (in Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions II: Intellectual History of Key Concepts, edited by Stefania Travagnin and Gregory A. Scott, 95-120, Boston and Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020); “Fostering Education Beyond the Classroom: Examples from Republican Buddhism and their Legacy Today” (Yin-Cheng Journal of Contemporary Buddhism 1 (2023) [forthcoming]).
Stefania Travagnin 