The Human World in a Pure Land: The Management Strategy of the Canton Buddhist Temple Haichuang in a Century of Sino-Western Contacts, 1770s-1870s

Abstract

Since the late 18th century, owing to its superior location, magnificent buildings and being a printing and circulation centre for Buddhist classics in the Canton (Guangdong) District, the Buddhist Temple Haichuang gradually became the most attractive temple to the westerners in China. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Temple was even designated by the Qing government as one of the few venues allowed to accommodate the westerners. The discussions made by previous works on the Temple approached the issue mainly from the perspective of “visitors”, but this paper is different. Its concern is: how did the monks manage and accommodate a large number of visitors who were different in gender, social class, race and cultural background? This is an important question concerned with a thorough understanding of the Temple’s historical development and its functions in the Sino-Western exchange. This paper is to probe into the question in three parts: firstly, to make an introduction to the Temple’s accommodating model and regulations, which were to balance different visitors’ needs and attend to its monks’ religious practice; secondly, to make an enquiry into the semi-official functions performed by the Temple as a regional non-institutional religious establishment, which assisted the Qing government in the management of westerners; and finally, to find out and analyse those modern concepts of religious tourism which are applicable to the enquiry into the Temple, so as to provide the latest valuable research results for promoting the research on the history of the Sino-Western exchange.