Sacred attraction in Chinese Buddhism : a study on the emergence, maintenance, and influence of charisma

Abstract

“Charisma” was originally a Christian notion. Max Weber extended this concept to political, military, cultural, and other religious contexts. Weber considered charisma as a form of power relationship and a socially generated phenomenon. His view of charisma has inspired numerous scholars across social history, but very few existing studies of charismatic dynamics have been conducted in the context of Chinese religion in a comparative way. Most studies investigate only one charismatic group instead of making comparisons with groups that are similar in terms of belief and ritual practice but which are different in the light of charismatic phenomena. This has resulted in a series of confusions about what features of religious or political groups are traceable to underlying charismatic relations, and which features would be expressed independently of charisma.

This study is a comparative study of two Chinese Buddhist sects (Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s Fo Guang Shang in Taiwan and Abbot Yongxin’s Shaolin Temple in Mainland China) with the purpose of exploring the emergence, maintenance, and influence of charisma in Chinese Buddhism. The data consists of interviews, participant observation, and collections of information from secondary sources. I collected data in 2018-2020 in fours religious sites: Taiwan (Kaohsiung), mainland China (Shanghai and Dengfeng) and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

In chapter 2, I examine how Venerable Master Hsing Yun generated charisma during a ten-year Dharma propagation in Yilan county in Taiwan, followed by chapter 3, where I engage in a discussion of the role of the Fo Guang Shan monastery in maintaining Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s charismatic authority. In chapter 4, I turn to the case of Shaolin Temple, analyzing the basis for Abbot Yongxin’s non-charismatic (traditional) authority with regard to its manifestation, reinforcement, inheritance, and responsibility. Chapter 5 examines the extraordinary (charismatic) elements of his power as a form of ‘hybrid charisma.’ I find that his authority consists of three different forms of charisma (following Weber, these are ‘office,’ ‘institutional,’ and ‘genuine’ charisma) that also interact with traditional authority. Chapter 6 engages in a cross-case comparison, examining the social dynamics as they are similar and different for Fo Guang Shan and Shaolin Temple. The comparison focusses specifically on the interplay between politics and charisma and the role of mass media as a double-edged sword in the process of charismatization.

To sum up, this study contributes to our understanding of Chinese Buddhism by providing a Weberian analysis of authority in two charismatic communities. It sheds light on the transformations of religion and religious groups under the market economy in the contemporary Chinese society, and provides insight about the dialectical dynamics that exist between pervasive materialism and an increasingly rising desire for spirituality in this fast-paced world.