Vortrag "Market and Merit: Reconsidering the Monastic Financial and Banking system under the Rule of Emperor Liang Wudi" (17 Mai 2017)

Mi, 17 Mai 2017, 16:00-18:00
KWZ 0.609

Vortrag
Prof. Dr. Jinhua Chen (University of British Columbia (UBC))
Market and Merit: Reconsidering the Monastic Financial and
Banking system under the Rule of Emperor Liang Wudi (r. 502-549)

Abstract
Scholars have made great strides to study the important role that
Buddhism played in promoting economic, financial, and commercial
activities in medieval China. There is, however, one limitation is in
need of addressing: almost singular focus on the economic activities
carried out within or in connection with the samgha, with little
attention to the economic and financial context for some allegedly
?pure? religious programs installed by Buddhists. This lecture endeavors
to make some long overdue compensation for this unbalanced approach.
First, it introduces the proto-banking institution known as wujinzang
(Inexhaustible Treasury), which was established during the reign of
the Chinese Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty (i.e. Liang Wudi, r.
502-549), who modeled himself upon King Asoka. Then it traces its
provenance back to some significant precedents and practices in India.
Finally, I highlight several major impacts Liang Wudi?s wujinzang system
appears to have wrought on its counterpart during the Sui-Tang period in
China when, primarily because of the charismatic Buddhist monk Xinxing
(540-594) and the leader of the Buddhist movement known as Sanjie jiao
(The cult of Three Stages), the Inexhaustible Treasury shaped the
institutional role of the Buddhist church in China for centuries.

Short biography
Jinhua Chen is a professor of East Asian Buddhism at the University of
British Columbia (UBC), where he has served since 2001 as the founding
director of the UBC Buddhist Studies Forum. He is currently the director
of the newly-awarded multi-year international and interdisciplinary
Partnership project sponsored by SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada) Project that aims at reconstructing several
key aspects of East Asian religions through multi-media sources and
interdisciplinary perspectives, based at UBC (www.frogbear.org). His numerous publications cover different
parts of Eats Asian Buddhism, such as state-church relationships,
monastic (hagio/)biographical literature, Buddhist sacred sites, relic
veneration, Buddhism and technological innovation in medieval China,
Buddhist translations, and manuscript culture.