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Buddhism in Jilong: The Proselytizing Centers
1media/QingAn.jpg2019-11-18T17:21:23-05:00Kate McDonald306bb1134bc892ab2ada669bed7aecb100ef7d5f359This page will explore the early efforts by Buddhist sects to find converts among Japanese settlers and Taiwanese residents.plain2020-07-24T12:41:10-04:0025.1276, 121.739181895-1945Evan N. Dawley, Becoming TaiwaneseEvan N. DawleySōdō sect; Pure Land sect; Shinshū sect Marui Keijirō; Jiufen; JinguashiEvan Dawley7a40080bd5bb656cee837d5befaa3ea8e7a2ac44The Japanese Occupation of Taiwan's Sacred SpaceThis page discusses how Japanese secular and religious institutions at least temporarily occupied some of the native temples after 1895.The Buddhist sects moved to Taiwan not simply to provide sacred space for their adherents, but went their to actively find more members among the Japanese settlers and the native community. Monks representing the Sōdō, Pure Land, and Shinshū sects all quickly established proselytizing centers (fukyōsho) in Jilong, with branches across the hinterland, and sought converts with a missionary zeal comparable to that of the thousands of North American and European missionaries then active across East Asia. (These towns are marked on the map on the Sacred Geography and the Everyday page.) In the first four months of 1902, the Sōdō monks held ten public sessions of religious training at its mission stations in and near Jilong; the Shinshū missionaries held sixty-nine sessions for Japanese settlers and sixteen for the Taiwanese; and those from the Pure Land held about a dozen sessions, focusing primarily on the Taiwanese who worked in the gold and coal mines near Jiufen and Jinguashi, east of Jilong. According to a report on these activities filed with the Government-General, the Japanese Buddhists sought to “break down the old customs of the islanders” in order to ensure that they “receive the corrective influence bestowed by Buddhist doctrines." As with the reconsecration of existing temples, these proselytizing centers aimed at a spiritual reterritorialization of Taiwan. However, their rate of success was very uneven. The first major survey of religion in Taiwan, led by the scholar and bureaucrat Marui Keijirō and published in 1919, noted around four thousand members of these sects among the Japanese settlers, or close to seventy percent of all Japanese in Jilong, but less than fifteen hundred Taiwanese, or under eight percent of the total.
You have reached the end of this pathway and can either return to the Japanese occupation of Taiwan's sacred spaces, below, or move forward to the Lingquan Temple.
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1media/Figure4.4.jpg2020-02-29T23:30:57-05:00Evan Dawley7a40080bd5bb656cee837d5befaa3ea8e7a2ac44Japanese BuddhismEvan Dawley3This page opens the Japanese Buddhism pathway.splash51532020-07-26T15:22:55-04:00Evan Dawley7a40080bd5bb656cee837d5befaa3ea8e7a2ac44