Anarchy in the Pure Land: Reinventing the Cult of Maitreya in Modern Chinese Buddhism [Hardcover]

Anarchy in the Pure Landshows that the modern Chinese reinvention of cult of Maitreya, the future Buddha, functioned as an important site for articulating a Buddhist vision of modernity.Anarchy in the Pure Landinvestigates the twentieth-century reinvention of the cult of Maitreya, the future Buddha, conceived by the reformer Taixu and promoted by the Chinese Buddhist reform movement. The cult presents an apparent anomaly: It shows precisely the kind of concern for ritual, supernatural beings, and the afterlife that the reformers supposedly rejected in the name of modernity. This book shows that, rather than a concession to tradition, the reimagining of ideas and practices associated with Maitreya was an important site for formulating a Buddhist vision of modernity.Justin Ritzinger argues that the cult of Maitreya represents an attempt to articulate a new constellation of values, integrating novel understandings of the good, clustered around modern visions of utopia, with the central Buddhist goal of Buddhahood. In Part One he traces the roots of this constellation to Taixu's youthful career as an anarchist. Part Two examines its articulation in the Maitreya School's theology and its social development from its inception to World War II. Part Three looks at its subsequent decline and contemporary legacy within and beyond orthodox Buddhism. Through these investigations,Anarchy in the Pure Landdevelops a new framework for alternative understandings of modernity in Buddhism.Introduction: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maitreya?Part I: Taixu's Buddhist RadicalismChapter One: Portrait of the Master as a Young AnarchistChapter Two: Disorienting FrameworksPart II: The Cult of MaitreyaChapter Three: A New Cult for New BuddhistsChapter Four: Bodhisattva of ProgressPart III: Worlds Closing and OpeningChapter Five: Future InterruptedChapter Six: Reawakening Maitreya-Legacies Orthodox and HeterodoxClãÁ