Bibliography of the original book: Beijing: ZHONGGUO SHEHUI KEXUEYUAN CHUBANSHE, 1998. Pp. 425. RMB 30.60 (paper).
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As we approach the hundredth anniversary of the discovery of cave seventeen at Dunhuang, the documents found there continue to yield startling information that challenges our assumptions about medieval Chinese Buddhism and society in general. In this study of monastic life at Dunhuang in the late Tang and early Song (roughly from the early ninth century to the late tenth), Hao Chunwen paints a picture of the everyday life of medieval Chinese monks and nuns that is radically different from the ideal conveyed in monastic regulations and biographies of eminent monks. Most surprisingly, he argues that monks at Dunhuang did not live together in monasteries.
The book opens with a chapter that examines documents related to specific ordination ceremonies carried out at Dunhuang. Subsequent chapters treat the number of monks at Dunhuang and their living arrangements, religious activities of monks, monastic income, funerary practices, and the treatment of Dunhuang monks by secular authorities. Throughout, Hao relies on careful readings of a wide variety of types of documents from Dunhuang (now scattered in libraries in different parts of the world). His discussion of religious practices, for instance, makes use of a curious set of documents that record and rank the visions, or failures to have a vision, of monks engaged in contemplative practices. In his discussion of ordination, he analyzes records from particular ordination ceremonies. These documents provide concrete details about the price men paid to be ordained (in one case a donkey and an ox), and the administrative channels one had to go through to receive permission to become a monk (permission was required from local civil authorities and at times from central authorities as well).
Hao then compares Dunhuang ordination records with rules for ordination in the Vinaya and points out some of the discrepancies. Dunhuang nuns, for instance, did not have to complete a probationary "novice" (`sik.samaa.naa) stage before becoming full-fledged bhik.su.nii. And monks were often assigned a master after ordination rather than finding one for themselves before ordination as prescribed in the Vinaya. An even more striking
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contrast of precept and practice is between the ordination vows of Dunhuang monks recorded in liturgical documents in which the ordainees vow never to drink alcohol, and monastic inventories which show that in practice monks drank ale (jiu 酒) with great frequency.
Hao's most surprising discoveries come from the unlikely source of monastic "circulars' (zhuantie 轉帖), announcements concerning monastic affairs distributed to the monks belonging to a particular monastery, each of whom was to check off his name before passing the document on to the next monk on the list. Once the document had made the round of all of the monastery's monks, it was stored along with other records in the monastery. The very existence of these documents is at first puzzling: why would it be necessary to circulate written announcements when all the monks lived, ate, and slept together?
Hao solves the puzzle by concluding that in fact monks at Dunhuang did not live together. The vast majority lived at home with their families, only visiting their monasteries on special occasions. This explains why one such document, informing monks that their monastery had been badly damaged by flooding, was necessary. Other types of documents make the point more explicit, stating that certain monks lived at home with their parents, siblings, or children. (Hao makes no attempt to analyze the marital status of these monks, leaving the question of the status of such children unclear.)
Just as surprisingly, Hao demonstrates that even the small percentage of monks who did live in the monasteries did not live communally, but slept, cooked, and ate in separate quarters. Hao's analysis of inventories of monastic property and food supplies yields much the same result: Dunhuang monasteries did not supply the daily needs of their monks because most monks did not live in the monasteries. These same inventories reveal that when monks were summoned to the monasteries to perform services, they were even required to bring their own bowls.
While at home, monks labored much like their secular counterparts, farming family fields and coming into the monastery only to take part in religious services or to join monastic work crews formed to repair the monastery when needed. In the eyes of the local authorities, monks were little different from other men. They were required to pay taxes and to take part in corvee labor -- some even performed military service. All of this means that monks were burdened on the one hand with the duties of tending the family farm, paying taxes, and corvee labor, and on the other hand with regular monastic obligations, including both liturgical responsibilities and manual labor on monastery grounds. The tension between religious and secular duties came to a head in the summer when monks had to choose between participating in the annual monastic retreat and overseeing the summer harvest back home.
Clearly, the traditional critique of monks as social parasites who join the order only to avoid work and taxes did not apply to the monks of Dunhuang. But if monks had to work the fields in addition to their monastic duties, what was the motivation to become a monk at all? Hao addresses this question on two fronts. First, on an individual level, many monks undoubtedly joined the order out of an affinity for Buddhist beliefs and practices. Secondly, monks at Dunhuang enjoyed fairly high social prestige as well as the opportunity to supplement their income through fees received for performing religious services.
Hao's analysis of monastic income discloses the way in which payment for religious services reinforced the monastic hierarchy. Older monks of higher status (often having a special monastic title) were in great demand for their services, and could earn a tidy income performing rituals for the Dunhuang elite. But these were a small minority. Hao estimates that only about five percent of Dunhuang monks could make a living performing Buddhist rituals alone -- most monks relied chiefly on agriculture for their livelihood, supplementing this income with modest fees for religious services, usually paid in grain or cloth.
Overall, the most provocative findings of the book are that monks at Dunhuang did not live together in monasteries and that monks paid taxes and provided corvee labor for the state. The evidence Hao presents is entirely convincing for ninth-century Dunhuang, but the reader is left wondering how far we can generalize to other parts of China at this and other times. Far removed from the more prestigious monasteries of central China, Dunhuang was in many ways distinctive. Indeed, many of the practices Hao describes -- such as the requirement that monks perform corvee labor and military service -- were first implemented when Dunhuang was under Tibetan rule, cut off from the rest of China. The temptation then is to dismiss the Dunhuang evidence as a curious anomaly. But Hao cites a note by the ninth-century Japanese pilgrim Ennin that should give us caution. When traveling through eastern China, Ennin stopped by a dilapidated monastery in which only the head monk resided. The other monks, he tells us, lived at home. This single reference is enough to suggest that perhaps the "Dunhuang model" of monasticism was not limited to Dunhuang.
It seems likely that the more prominent, better-funded monasteries of medieval China were much closer to the monastic ideal, with monks living together in the monastery engaged in Buddhist ritual and study. Hao's book insists, however, that this model not be taken for granted, and that we read sources on Buddhist monasticism more carefully for clues that monks may have been even more closely integrated into society than we have assumed.
In addition to careful attention to a large body of primary materials, Hao makes judicious use of relevant secondary literature. His writing is clear and his arguments cogent. Scholars exploring the place of monasticism in Chinese history will need to come to terms with his findings.