Buddhism after Mao: Negotiations, Continuities and Reinventions is essential reading for scholars of Chinese religions and Buddhism, and for those who want to better understand the relationship between Buddhism and the modern state. The editors, Ji Zhe, Gareth Fisher and André Laliberté, open the volume with one of the most useful introductions I have read recently. They begin by explaining how they have defined the scope of the book: rather than trying to cover a range of aspects of Buddhism in the People's Republic of China, they have chosen to focus “on the evolution of Buddhist institutions such as temples an monasteries, as places of worship and learning, as tourist sites, and as providers of philanthropy” (p. 3). The editors note that in taking Buddhist institutions as the primary subject of study, they are following the lead of Holmes Welch, and his three volumes covering Chinese Buddhism in the early twentieth century. This approach, too, reflects the “availability of existing research,” and the social scientific methods used by most contributors (p. 4). It is worth noting that this is a rare example of an edited volume in which women outnumber men among the contributors, and the editors are to be applauded for the diversity of voices that are included here. The introduction continues with a useful discussion of theoretical frameworks for the study of Chinese religion (pp. 4–8) and an overview of the chapters (pp. 8–15), concluding with a discussion of how these chapters reveal Buddhism's appeal to different kinds of individuals.

The volume is organized in three sections, following the three terms in the subtitle. Part one, “Negotiating legitimacy: making Buddhism with the state,” opens with André Laliberté's survey of Buddhism under Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping. In addition to offering a historical survey of how the role of Buddhism has expanded over the last three decades, this chapter provides a useful overview of the key domains in which Buddhism operates. If this chapter takes the macro view, the next chapter focuses on the micro level: Claire Vidal looks at the administration of Putuoshan, and especially the role one administrator played in connecting different groups. Vidal's sources emphasize the “three unifiers” (santong) of human resources, construction projects and economic management, which have proved to be a durable way to organize the distribution of resources (p. 64 ff). Susan K. McCarthy, in “Spiritual technologies and the politics of Buddhist charity,” talks about two charitable efforts that have different aims and receptions. The Loving Heart Congee programme distributes congee to anyone who wants a cup, with the aim “to rouse the public's compassion and concern for others, eliminate barriers between people, and in doing so alleviate the estrangement that characterizes contemporary social existence” (pp. 84–85). The other charitable activity McCarthy describes is releasing life (fangsheng), which highlights the tension “between the pursuit of merit and the public good” (p. 92), and the limits of rapprochement between Buddhist charity and state goals. The alignment – and misalignment – of religious goals and state ones is a theme in Brian Nichols's “Tourist temples and places of practice,” which examines how three temples negotiated the competing claims of Buddhist clergy, who sought to revive monasteries as places for Buddhist practice, and non-monastic parties, who had different ideas of how these sites should be used.

Part two of the volume is titled “Revival and continuity: the monastic tradition and beyond.” In “Bridging the gap: Chan and Tiantai Dharma lineages from Republican to post-Mao China,” Daniela Campo describes how dharma transmission not only helped to preserve Buddhism during the gap in ordinations from 1957 to 1981, but also facilitated the creation of transnational networks and the maintenance of ritual knowledge. Ester Bianchi's “Transmitting the precepts in conformity with the Dharma” considers ordination, rather than dharma transmission, and argues that the resurgence of interest in the vinaya was part of “an effort guarantee ‘purity’ and ‘orthodoxy’ for the monastic community” (p. 158) in a time of increased ordinations. Ji Zhe, in “Schooling Dharma teachers,” combines fieldwork and archival research to give an account of the Buddhist academy system in its historical context, concluding that the diploma system of academies provides a way of recognizing the knowledge of monastics, and converting it to “symbolic capital” (p. 199). The final chapter of this section, by Ashiwa Yoshiko and David Wank, looks at a para-monastic community of lay nuns in Minnan. Ashiwa and Wank first explain the history of caigu and then discuss how they were integrated into state policy so as “to give institutional legitimacy to their existence” (p. 239), which also validated local cultural difference.

Part three, “Reinventing the Dharma: Buddhism in a changing society,” picks up the theme of innovation. Huang Weishan, in “Urban restructuring and temple agency: a case study of the Jing'an Temple” considers how the abbot of this Shanghai temple has taken advantage of urban development to renovate and improve it. Huang also shows how authorities have claimed that Jing'an Temple is “religious” or “cultural” at different moments (p. 263); this piece pairs well with that of Nichols. New activities of Buddhist temples are also the subject of Gareth Fisher's “Places of their own.” Following in a similar vein to his recent monograph, Fisher discusses how various Buddhist spaces (the temple, the outer courtyard, lay Buddhist halls) facilitate different kinds of activities and interactions. The final chapter, by Stefania Travagnin, looks at online ritual activities, how they differ from parallel activities in the physical world and how they might be understood as more “civilized” – one of the key values promoted by the government. For example, offering paper money and incense in a virtual way might be called “civilized,” while burning incense and paper in reality is seen as damaging to the environment.

Travagnin's chapter opens up a number of issues, both in religious studies and in Chinese studies. The questions she raises about the nature of online rituals could be asked of many other religious traditions. At the end, Travagnin suggests that online apps may lend themselves to monitoring by the government, which connects this piece to a broader discourse on surveillance in the PRC. Shortly after I finished reading this book, I mentioned Travagnin's chapter to an undergraduate student interested in how personal devices and apps are used in contemporary China, and this chapter is the one I'm most likely to assign to undergraduates. Although I found all the chapters fascinating and valuable reading, I did wish for less data, and more narrative – I wanted to hear more about Zhang Minxi from Vidal's chapter, more about the individual stories of the lay nuns discussed by Ashiwa and Wank, and more about Teacher Wang from Fisher's chapter. Much of this volume is dense and detailed, which makes it less suitable to assign as reading for undergraduates. Instead, I will assign this excellent set of studies in graduate seminars and use the examples and analysis to inform my undergraduate teaching.