Buddhist; Monastic education; Revival movements; Twentieth century; Vietnam; Buddhism in Vietnam; Vietnamese Buddhism; Vietnamese monastic education; Vietnamese Buddhist revival movement; Contemporary Vietnamese Buddhism; Buddhism and Communism
摘要
This dissertation traces the history of the Buddhist revival movements in twentieth-century Vietnam, giving special attention to the central place of education in their activities. The revival movements were initiated independently by some Sangha members and lay Buddhists in all three regions of the country. Although these movements started independently of each other, they had a common purpose to reform Buddhist practices and to improve monastic education. The history of each Buddhist revival movement and its monastic education system were shaped by the available resources and social conditions in each region. Monastic leaders and lay members were initially concerned about the state of Buddhist practice and especially about monastic teaching and behavior. They agreed that the task of disseminating proper Buddhist doctrines had to begin with providing a better system of monastic education, but the movements also approached the tasks of reliant and education in a variety of means, including periodicals. Indeed, Buddhist publications published in this period dominated religious literary culture. In the area of monastic education, the basic model was more traditional and was based on patterns found in the three-month summer retreat. Again, each region established its own monastic education program according to needs and resources. Monastic, traveled from region to region to learn from each others' experiments in education and some monks traveled abroad for studies As early as 1937, the northern and central association sent two Sangha members to study in China. In 1950s and 1960s, more monastics went abroad to study in mostly south Asian countries and some European counties. In 1951, the regional Buddhist associations were consolidated for the first time. In 1964, after the Buddhist crisis in 1963, the Unified Buddhist Church (UBC) was established and the Van Hanh University was founded. UBC had an extensive system of social and educational services for both monastic and lay people. Monastic education also consolidated into one system. In 1975, all Buddhist activities were stopped by the Communist government but it organized the Vietnamese Buddhist Church in 1981 and revived the monastic education system.
