Female Education in a Chan Public Monastery in China: The Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns

Abstract

The Great Chan Monastery of the Golden Mountain (Dajinshan Chansi 大金山禪寺) is a large monastic complex for nuns located in Jiangxi province in southeast China and belonging to the Chan meditation school. The Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns (Jiangxi foxueyuan Dajinshan nizhong xueyuan 江西佛學院大金山尼眾學院), established at the monastery in 1994, is one of the few institutes for nuns in China to be especially axed on Chan studies and practice. What are the pedagogical goals and agenda of the Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns? What are the specificities of this academy as compared to other female academies, and to academies for monks? Why do nuns enroll at Dajinshan Buddhist Academy? What does this case study tell us about the gender balance in Chinese Buddhism today? This paper, based on fieldwork, will try to answer these questions by especially considering enrollment and scale, students and personnel, and curricula and schedule of the Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns.

1. Introduction

Although it is difficult to provide accurate estimates, it is widely acknowledged that Buddhism, counting 100 million followers at the beginning of the twenty-first century, represents today the largest and most influential among the five officially recognized religions in the People’s Republic of China1. Official statistics indicate that in 2018, there were around 222,000 Buddhist clerics and 33,500 Buddhist temples in China, including 28,000 Han Buddhist temples, 3800 Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, and 1700 Theravāda Buddhist temples2. Based on different sources, (Ji 2012)3 and (Gildow 2016) both arrived at an estimate of about 100,000 monastics for Han Buddhism alone4, of which in 2016, about 3000 were seminarians in about fifty Buddhist academies (Gildow 2016, pp. 48, 76, 204).

Buddhist academies (foxueyuan 佛學院), also referred to as institutes of Buddhist studies or Buddhist seminaries, are higher degree-granting educational institutions annexed to monasteries and convents, where Buddhist courses are complemented by secular studies5. Since their appearance in China at the beginning of the twentieth century6, Buddhist academies have become central monastic institutions, changing in a durable way monastic training and education in general, and the formation of monastic elites in particular. At least seventy-one Buddhist academies were established in the Republican period (1912–1949)7, and at least thirteen for women (nuns and sometimes also laywomen) between 1924 and 19488. The first educational organization for Buddhist nuns and laywomen was the Wuchang Female Institute of Buddhist Studies (Wuchang foxueyuan nüzhongyuan 武昌佛學院女眾院) established by Master Taixu 太虛 (1890–1947) in 19249.

While Buddhist academies were run as private institutions during the Republican period, since the communist takeover in 1949 and the establishment of the Buddhist Association of China (Zhongguo fojiao xiehui 中国佛教协会, BAC) in 1953, Buddhist monastic education has been subjected to state control. The Buddhist Academy of China (Zhongguo foxueyuan 中國佛學院) was the first national-level institution10 and the only one allowed to exist between its establishment in Beijing in 1956 and its formal closure in 1966. Since its reopening in 1980 following the end of the Cultural Revolution, the number of Buddhist academies has gradually increased, reaching fifty-eight for Han Buddhism alone in 2014 (Ji 2019, appendix 7.1, pp. 200–4). Not only there are many more Buddhist academies today than in the first half of the twentieth century, but they also serve a much smaller monastic population (Gildow 2016, p. 204)11.

While the majority of Buddhist academies are male-only institutions, there also exist academies with male and female sections (nüzhongbu 女眾部), as well as women-only academies. (Yang 2011, chart p. 20) estimated that sixteen female institutions (including both female sections and women-only academies) were established in the country between 1983 and 2005; in 2014, (Ji 2019, p. 186) counted eleven specialized Buddhist academies for women, and fifteen others accepting both men and women12. The most illustrious example of an academy with male and female sections is the Minnan Buddhist Academy (Minnan foxueyuan 閩南佛學院), which (re)opened in 198513, the female branch of which is considered to be the best for nuns in China (Gildow 2016, p. 206). The Buddhist academy of the Xuyun chanlin 虚云禅林, the female sub-temple (xiayuan 下院) of the Bailin Chan monastery in Hebei, is an example of a more recently established branch institution, created in 201614.

In effect, a rapid survey shows that while a few Buddhist academies for women listed by Ji are not active anymore, new academies were established since 2015. This institutional turnover seems to leave especially unaffected long-established, women-only, provincial-level independent institutions such as the Sichuan Buddhist Academy for Nuns (Sichuan nizhong foxueyuan 四川尼眾佛學院)15, the first female academy to have opened after the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1983; the Wutaishan Buddhist Academy for Nuns (Wutaishan nizhong foxueyuan 五台山尼众佛学院), established at Pushou monastery in 199216; the Guangdong Buddhist Academy for Nuns (Guangdong foxueyuan nizhong xueyuan 廣東佛學院尼眾學院, previously called Guangdong nizhong foxueyuan 廣東尼眾佛學院), which was created in 1995; and the Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns (Jiangxi foxueyuan Dajinshan nizhong xueyuan 江西佛學院大金山尼眾學院), established in 1994 and which is the object of this study.

What are the pedagogical goals and agenda of the Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns17? What are the specificities of this academy as compared to other female academies, and to academies for monks?18 Why do nuns enroll at Dajinshan Buddhist Academy? What does this case study tell us about the gender balance in Chinese Buddhism today? In this paper, based on observations, materials, and interviews from fieldwork, I will try to answer these questions by especially considering enrollment and scale, students and personnel, and curricula and schedule of the Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns.

I conducted fieldwork at Dajinshan in 2006, 2015, 2016, and 2019, each time residing at the monastery for a period of about ten days. During each of my stays, I followed the monastic community in the daily liturgy and formal meals, participated in different ritual occasions related to the Buddhist and secular calendars, attended classes and meditation sessions, spent time at the retiring house, and visited and resided at the monastery’s sub-temples, sometimes also accompanying the current abbess there19. During my stays at the monastery, I had both formal conversations and informal talks with the retired and current abbesses, with different nuns holding monastic positions, and with a few lay devotees and local political representatives (most of the longer, formal conversations were recorded)20.

2. The Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns

The Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns is a women-only institution annexed to the Great Monastery of the Golden Mountain (Dajinshan Chansi 大金山禪寺), a large, public monastery21 for nuns of the Chan (meditation) school located in southeast China, near the city of Fuzhou in Jiangxi province. A historical stronghold of Han Buddhism, Jiangxi is the third province for Buddhist sites to population (38.92 per million) according to 2006 estimates (after Fujian and Zhejiang: Ji 2012, p. 17). The monastery and its institute are both independent from any male institution. The monastic community counts a steady average of two hundred nuns, including about a hundred student-nuns.

The Dajinshan monastery was rebuilt by retired abbess Yinkong 印空 (b. 1921), one of the very few Buddhist masters still alive to have entered religion before the 1949 Communist takeover. Starting from 1984, Yinkong rebuilt over ten years the monastery on top of the hill (Jinshan monastery, from the name of the hill on which it seats) where she had received tonsure from a Buddhist nun in 1940 and where she had lived in her youth. In 2000, she began the construction of another monastic complex at the foot of the hill (Dajinshan monastery) in order to expand the premises. Yinkong was herself a teacher before the start of the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), and the instruction of women, and more generally, the will to provide women with equal opportunities, is a foundational theme of her lifelong activities22. She therefore rebuilt Dajinshan monastery as a large, orthodox institution for nuns claiming the same status and legitimacy as the most prestigious male monasteries, and she expressly adopted for it a gender-neutral denomination (chansi 禪寺, “Chan monastery”) different from the Chinese term referring to small convents or nunneries (an 庵)23. Large public monasteries such as Dajinshan are less commonly occupied by nuns than small convents in China.

Yinkong regrets that when she was a young novice and nun, female monastics did not have the possibility to practice collective meditation according to the standards and methods of the Chan school, as women were (and are) not allowed to enter the meditation halls of male monasteries, and that no meditation halls especially dedicated to them existed (or were easily accessible) at that time. For this reason, she built at her monastery in 1994 one of the first large meditation halls for nuns in the country24. Yinkong later equipped her monastery with an ordination platform, and more recently, she also built a retiring house for aged nuns and the aging parents of Dajinshan’s nuns, as a strategy to motivate more women to enter religion and to motivate parents to give their consent.

Although retired abbess Yinkong engaged in nuns’ education since the 1940s, the idea of establishing the academy initially came from her Dharma master, the monk Benhuan 本煥 (1907–2012)25, whose great renown surely helped the monastery to obtain authorization from the Jiangxi Buddhist Association and the provincial Religious and Ethnic Affairs bureau. The “Jiangxi Buddhist Academy for Nuns” (Jiangxi nizhong foxueyuan 江西尼眾佛學院), as it was originally called, was the first academy for nuns to be established in Jiangxi province in 1994, and the only one until 201626. Initially located at Jinshan monastery on top of the hill, it was later moved to the larger Dajinshan monastery. As a picture included in the commemorative publication of the first twenty years of the academy shows, Benhuan took part in the academy’s inauguration ceremony together with Yicheng 一誠 (1927–2017), another renown Chan monk who was leading at that time the restoration of his lineage temple27, the Zhenru Monastery on Mount Yunju in Jiangxi, and who was later appointed president of the BAC from 2002 to 2010. Since then, the institute has received the visits of many other prominent Chinese Buddhists and political leaders (Jiangxi nizhong foxueyuan ershi zhounian yuanqing zhuankan 2014, pp. 10–21).

The academy is housed and funded by the monastery, and as is often the case, the most important administrative positions of the two institutions overlap: the academy’s nominal director (yuanzhang 院長) is Yinkong herself, and its vice-director is Dajinshan’s current abbess and Yinkong’s disciple, Duncheng 頓成 (b. 1966). The funds for the construction of the academy were first provided by the Fu Hui Charity Foundation (Xianggang Fuhui cishan jijinhui 香港福慧慈善基金會), a Hong Kong-based Buddhist philanthropic association that especially sponsors higher education28, and by a few emigrated Buddhist monks such as Jinghai 净海 (b. 1931) (Jiangxi nizhong foxueyuan ershi zhounian yuanqing zhuankan 2014, pp. 16, 62). Starting from 2002, thanks to Benhuan’s introduction, the construction of the new academy at Dajinshan was sponsored by the Glorisun Group (Xianggang Xuri jituan 香港旭日集團) (Jiangxi nizhong foxueyuan ershi zhounian yuanqing zhuankan 2014, pp. 1, 62), a well-known Hong Kong jeans company that has financed a great number of Buddhist enterprises in China. As a token of gratitude towards its donor, the main building of the Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns is called the “building of venerating the rising sun” (Zunxulou 尊旭樓).

This teaching building (jiaoxuelou 教學樓), which surrounds a verdant central courtyard (Figure 1), includes the students’ lodgings, classrooms, offices, a meeting room, a computer room, a hall for the collective recitation of sacred texts (fatang 法堂), and a library. There are no sports equipment and no areas for sport, as sport is part neither of the curriculum nor of the leisure activities preconized at the academy. Student-nuns share ten-person dorms equipped with bunk beds, air-conditioning, and heating. These facilities are also to be found in the classrooms, although when I attended classes in a cool month of March in 2019, the heating was off and students were wrapped up in scarves and hats, with blankets on their legs. Most of the classrooms have been recently equipped with blackboards doubled with an electronic screen. Students are only allowed to take hand-notes, however, and they leave all personal belongings, including flasks, outside the classroom. Generally speaking, Dajinshan’s rules and way of living are quite austere, and the monthly allowance is especially low (130 yuan) if compared to other monasteries. Potential student-nuns often come beforehand and stay at the monastery for a few days (guadan 掛單) as temporary residents (yunshui 雲水) to make sure that they find the atmosphere and lifestyle suitable for them.

2.1. Enrollment and Scale

As most Buddhist academies in China, the Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns does not enroll students every year. It first enrolled every two years between 1994 and 1998 when classes had to be set up, then every three years from 1998 to 2020, a period during which the curriculum consisted of a three-year elementary program (jichuban 基礎班), followed by a three-year beginner program (chujiban 初級班) and a three-year intermediate program (zhongjiban 中級班), plus a final one-year meditation class. The academy then shifted to a biennial enrollment after the course of study was modified in 2019 in order to match the national standard—it now includes, besides two years of preparatory program (yukeban 預科班), four years of a bachelor degree program (benkeban 本科班) and three years of a master degree program (yanjiuban 研究班). This is the same course of study, for example, as the Sichuan Buddhist Academy for Nuns (Yang 2011, pp. 37, 39).

As for the academy’s scale, a chart included in the commemorative publication of the first twenty years of the academy provides precise figures for every year from 1994 to 2013. During this period, the academy enrolled eight promotions29, with classes counting an average of 32–33 students30 for a total of 716 student-nuns graduating in the three programs31, of which 159 student-nuns graduated in the intermediate, final program alone (Jiangxi nizhong foxueyuan ershi zhounian yuanqing zhuankan 2014, p. 9). If we double these numbers to also cover the period 2013–2022, we obtain an estimate of more than 300 student-nuns having obtained their final degree since 1994. This is a rather conservative estimate, as the scale of the academy has grown from an average of 90 student-nuns per year for the period 1994–201332 to 136 student-nuns upon my last visit in 2019. Notwithstanding the fact that academies for nuns are in general of a smaller scale than those for monks33, the present scale of Dajinshan Buddhist academy matches the national average of 140 students (Ji 2019, pp. 186–87). Therefore, the Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns can be considered a large female academy34.

Conditions for applying to the Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns, according to the 2022 call for applications, are “to love one’s country and religion, to comply with the statutes and obey the laws, to have a clean criminal record and an upright moral conduct, to support the Party’s leadership and the socialist system, and to have a firm belief”35. As is the case for any Buddhist Academy in China, political allegiance and collaboration count as the first requirement. Candidates must be between 18 and 40 years old, and they must have entered religion (i.e., received tonsure) at least one year prior. They must be “fond of practicing and studying, possess a dignified demeanor36, be in good health, be exempt from any hidden handicap, infectious disease and depressive disorder37, do not have unhealthy habits nor marital or romantic relationships”38. Candidates applying to the preparatory program must possess a junior high-school degree or above (chuzhong yishang 初中以上), while those applying to the bachelor degree program must have completed a preparatory program in a Buddhist academy or possess a senior middle-school degree or above (gaozhong yishang 高中以上).

Applications must previously be approved by the candidates’ public monastery (kaifang conglin 開放叢林) or local Buddhist Association. Either a letter of introduction and recommendation from the candidate’s local Buddhist Association or Religious Affairs Bureau, or a certificate from the monastery of origin are to be submitted, along with the ordination certificate (for ordained nuns), ID card, and a medical examination form, including positive resistance to type B hepatitis (required since at least 2013) and DNA test (a new 2022 requirement)39. More sanitary requirements were also added to the 2022 call for applications as compared to the application of 2020 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic40. As is customary in Buddhist academies, candidates meeting all requirements undergo a written and oral admission examination. At Dajinshan, the examination is intended to test their general knowledge, acquaintance with Buddhist liturgy and deportment, and “comprehensive attainments in self-cultivation” (zonghe suyang 綜合素養)41.

The above-mentioned conditions do not differ much from general requirements of male academies, nor from Dajinshan academy’s previous calls for applications (2013 and 2020), except on two points. The first difference is the scale of the enrollment, which in 2022 was raised to 45 student-nuns for the preparatory program and 45 for the bachelor degree program, as compared to 40 and 40 for the same programs in 2020. Second, the age limit to be enrolled at the Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns was also raised from 35 to 40 since at least 2020, as compared to the 2013 call for applications42. Although a general raise in the age limit seems to concern male Buddhist academies as well43, the current age limit for enrolling at Dajinshan academy is higher than the average for both monks and nuns, judging from a few 2022 calls for applications of other male and female academies for the same programs44. This specific choice of Dajinshan academy to raise the scale and the age limit for enrollment can be ascribed to different factors.

First of all, generally speaking, the age for joining the Buddhist monastic order is being increasingly pushed further, since many Chinese enter religion after marrying and bearing a child. Besides disappointment with and failure of marital life (certainly not a new phenomenon), this fact can be ascribed to the state family planning and especially the single-child policy implemented between 1979 and 201545, which will have a growing impact for at least another decade46. Due to the long-standing importance of the ancestor cult in China, young adults have the moral obligation of bearing an heir who can continue the family line. This obligation is all the more compelling for single children, and given that candidates to religious life, especially if minor, must obtain from their parents the permission to enter religion—particularly in the case of wealthy and well-educated single children, this permission is often not easily granted.

Second, while the delay of the age for entering religion concerns both male and female candidates to religious life, the latter pay a higher price. The important gender imbalance also caused by the single-child policy (the male marriage population far exceeds the female marriage population in China) entails that the pressure to marry and bear a child is higher on women than on men. Women are also expected to take care of their old parents more than men are. An analogous disadvantage concerns female monastics. Since there are in China fewer higher education institutions for nuns than for monks, the selection to enroll—which is also executed according to the age of the candidates—is harder for nuns. Furthermore, at some Buddhist academies where male and female sections are available, for example, the Fujian Buddhist Academy, age limits for women’s enrollment are lower than for men47, and the curriculum is longer48.

Finally, although the age limit for ordination is the same for men and women (59 years), according to contemporary official regulations, at least two years must separate the tonsure and the complete ordination of female novices (but only one year in the case of male novices), therefore implicitly allowing for their two-year49 training as a probationer (skr. śikṣamāṇā, ch. shichani 式叉尼)50. Since the dozen monasteries allowed to conduct ordinations in the country every year must respect a maximum quota imposed by the government (usually 350 ordinands for each ordaining monastery), when receivable applications exceed the quota, as is often the case, the selection is performed according to the age and education level of the candidates. In other words, among all receivable applications for ordination, monasteries select the youngest and more educated novices. As a consequence, female novices entering religious life at a relatively advanced age often find themselves unable, first, to enroll at a Buddhist academy, and then, because of their age and lack of a Buddhist degree, also to receive complete ordination, even though they might still be below the ordination age limit51.

Therefore, Dajinshan academy’s recent raise of the enrollments’ scale and age limit to 40 years old seems to aim at granting both more women in general, and elder women in particular, the opportunity of being both trained and ordained. It is also a strategy for Dajinshan academy to enroll more students in a logic of competition with other female academies in China.

2.2. Students and Teachers

Students come from the whole country to enroll at Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns: a small group of students I spent an afternoon with in July 2015 came from Sichuan, Yunnan, Guangdong, and the Wutaishan region. Some students enroll because it is here that they were accepted after applying to different academies, some others, such as one student from Guangdong I interviewed in 201552, chose this academy because of the specialization of its program and despite the fact that there was a Buddhist academy at the very monastery she came from. Indeed, in order to attract student-monastics and to find its place in a context of national diversification and competition (Ji 2019, p. 185), Dajinshan academy puts forward its “distinguishing Chan feature” (chanzong tese 禪宗特色; see next section “Curricula and schedule”). Although overseas students are accepted at the academy, they are especially rare.

The Dajinshan monastery also systematically enrolls young novices at the academy regardless of their educational level53, a proof that occasionally, still in the twenty-first century, women’s education continues in the Buddhist monastery. According to the 2019 academic dean (jiaowuzhang 教務長), Buddhist knowledge must be imparted to all novices starting from scratch in any case—this is what the preparatory program is designed for54. If novices are under 20, which is below the minimum ordination age, they also take, in addition to the ten precepts of the śrāmaṇerī (shaminijie 沙彌尼戒), the six additional precepts of the probationer (shichanijie 式叉尼戒) bonding them for about two years. Probationers are especially forbidden to eat (and drink tea) after noon, an interdiction that is strictly implemented at Dajinshan. All the probationers of the monastery are students at the academy, and they represent the majority of the students of the preparatory program.

In effect, the training of the student-nuns at the academy, especially if they start as probationers, allows for a sort of “religious formatting” that is quite convenient for the monastery, and more generally for Han institutional Buddhism. First of all, it is in a religious communal lifestyle considered as “orthodox” by Buddhist and political leaders that student-nuns are trained in the first place. Furthermore, only a Buddhist academy degree grants (monks and) nuns the possibility of holding positions (zhishi 執事) at monasteries and Buddhist academies in China, including Dajinshan. Finally, nuns who do not transition as probationers face more difficulty learning and assimilating at once a consequent number of Vinaya rules (368 precepts for fully ordained nuns according to the Dharmaguptaka tradition followed in China). For this reason, the academy also organizes a separate two-year Vinaya class (jielüban 戒律版) reserved for fully ordained resident nuns (up to 50 years old) who are over the age to enroll in the standard programs. The Vinaya class includes courses on Vinaya as well as on basic Buddhist knowledge55. A second alternative educational program for nuns who cannot enroll at the academy consists of evening lectures (fuhuiban 福慧班) resembling the traditional expounding of sutras (jiangjing 講經). Differently from other female institutions such as the Wutaishan Buddhist Academy for Nuns, the Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy is not open to laywomen.

At the end of their studies, most graduate student-nuns go back to their temple of origin in order to teach and train the community there—this is indeed the main reason why small convents56 bear the costs and inconveniencies of sending their young recruits to study and practice at a Buddhist academy. In effect, although the academy is free of charge and living expenses are taken care of, and although student-nuns do receive a regular monthly allowance supplemented by offerings from rituals, the temple of origin as well as their families often have to endorse students’ out-of-pocket expenses such as cell phone bills, hygiene products, train/airplane tickets, and so forth.

Other graduated students leave in order to specialize, teach, or hold positions at other academies and temples, including Dajinshan’s affiliated temples. A few enter Dajinshan’s resident monastic community and may also become teachers at its academy. Almost all of the about twenty teacher-nuns (fashi 法師) that the Dajinshan academy counted in 2019 had graduated there. This is because when the academy was first established in 1994, it was especially difficult to find nuns holding a Buddhist degree: current abbess Duncheng did not hold any when she began to teach—she had a university degree, however, and this was a rare privilege for a nun at that time—and, more recently, it is difficult to find teacher-nuns specialized in Chan studies and practice, as not many Buddhist academies besides Dajinshan offer this specialization in the country. This is the reason why, especially at the beginning, graduated students were sometimes persuasively retained in order to become teachers at the academy. One of the teachers recalls with humor how, after her graduation, she wished to go perfect her studies at another academy just as some of her classmates, but found herself in a cumbersome situation when she was entrusted with a teaching position. She decided to go on a pilgrimage to Wutaishan in order to make up her mind, but when she returned, everybody was already addressing her as “teacher” (fashi)—the monastery had announced her appointment before she could answer the offer!57

In the period from 1994 to 2013, the staff of the academy included seventeen teacher-nuns,58 three laymen, and two laywomen, aged 27 to 93 years old, and native of ten different provinces (including northern provinces such as Inner Mongolia, Jilin, and Heilongjiang); their educational level ranged from senior middle-school to doctorate (Jiangxi nizhong foxueyuan ershi zhounian yuanqing zhuankan 2014, detailed chart p. 17). This is a very different configuration from the Wutaishan Buddhist Academy for Nuns, which at least until 2011 mainly relied on the abbess Rurui to teach its 500–600 students59, and from the Sichuan Buddhist Academy for Nuns, where only half of the about thirty teachers are monastics and the rest of them include many university professors (Yang 2011, pp. 37, 39–40). While Buddhist courses are taught by teacher-nuns, laywomen are occasionally invited to teach secular courses such as classical studies (guoxue 國學), Chinese painting (guohua 國畫), calligraphy, history and geography, and informatics. I met three of these lay teachers across the years. Among them, in 2015, a retired teacher from Shanghai, who was in charge of a two-week course of history and geography at the academy during the summer retreat (anju 安居), was letting two willing student-nuns catch up on their exam (bukao 補考) one evening in order to allow them to achieve their degree—the academy’s standards and expectations are not exceedingly high. Differently from other nationally renowned institutions such as the Wutaishan Buddhist Academy for Nuns and the Sichuan Buddhist Academy for Nuns (see Yang 2011, pp. 28–30, 35–43), Dajinshan academy only offers one kind of curriculum, and no collaboration with local universities has been established so far. Male teachers represent an exception and rather account as “special guests”; this is the case, for example, of a nationally renowned Buddhist layman who occasionally comes to the academy to teach a one-week class, and of officials of the Religious Affairs Bureau who expressly come to teach courses on politics.

2.3. Curricula and Schedule

Although monastic education is not mandatory in China, and although curricula of Buddhist academies are not nationally unified, they must usually include an established proportion of Buddhist knowledge, general culture, knowledge of politics, and supplementary courses such as music and calligraphy (Ji 2019, p. 190). According to the 2011 call for applications of the Sichuan Buddhist Academy for Nuns, for example, 60% of the imparted courses dealt with Buddhist knowledge (including doctrines and texts of a large array of Buddhist schools) and 40% with secular knowledge (including Classical Chinese, University Chinese, History of Chinese Philosophy, History of Western Philosophy, Psychology, Politics, English and Informatics; Yang 2011, p. 38).

However, the 2015 and 2018 curricula of the Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns included no regular courses of general culture strictly speaking, but only Buddhist courses for an average 18 classes60 per week, and supplementary courses (calligraphy and Chinese painting) for a steady four classes per week. General culture courses such as Classical Studies (guoxue) were usually taught by lay teachers on a short-term basis, especially during the summer retreat when the latter have more spare time. Since the standardization of the study program in 2019, a 2-h general culture course has replaced Chinese painting, while the 2-h calligraphy course was maintained. Political courses—in 2019, “The Marxist Perspective on Religion”, “The Sinification of Religion”, and “Religious Policy and Regulations”—were and are not delivered on a regular basis at Dajinshan academy either, but only when officials of the Jiangxi Religious Education Service (Jiangxisheng zongjiao yuanxiao jiaoyu fuwu zhongxin 江西省宗教院校教育服務中心) are dispatched to the monastery. Therefore, the academy seems far from respecting the provision of 70% religious courses, 20% cultural courses, and 10% political courses established by the “Request for Instructions about Opening Religious School” approved by the central government in 1982 (Ji 2019, p. 191)61.

This is all the more true if we consider that, differently from most Buddhist academies, the Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns’ weekly schedule also forecasts an average of 13 h of collective religious practice for each promotion62 besides the strict observance and practice of monastic discipline (Vinaya), and on top of the standard and compulsory two daily liturgies (morning and evening) and formal meals, the bimonthly collective recitation of the precepts, and all other ritual events of the religious calendar. In effect, although the monastery has established a philanthropic association and a retiring house, its academy does not put forward the ideal of “serving society” derived from humanistic Buddhism (renjian fojiao 人間佛教) as other Buddhist academies do (see Yang 2011, pp. 26, 30–31, 38). It does, however, explicitly emphasize the importance attributed to both study and practice (xuexiu bingzhong 學修並重) and is apparently not as concerned with one of the major problems of contemporary Buddhist education, that is, academization (xueshuhua 學術化) and the ensuing tension between study and practice63.

Buddhist courses change every year and are predominantly axed on texts, including Mahāyāna fundamental texts and texts of selected Mahāyāna schools, such as the Yogācāra and Tiantai schools. The academy’s special focus, however, is on texts associated with the Chan tradition. In 2019, for example, these included the Vimalakīrti Sutra (Weimojiesuo shuo jing 維摩詰所說經, T. 475), the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (Liuzu dashi fabao tanjing 六祖大師法寶壇經, T. 2008), and a course on the annalistic biography of Chan master Xuyun 虛雲 (ca. 1864–1959)64.

Although this is not explicitly emphasized by the academy, texts associated with monastic discipline occupy an equally important part of the curriculum than Chan texts. In 2019, Vinaya courses focused on the Sutra on the bhikṣuṇī Mahāprajāpatī (Da’aidao biqiuni jing大愛道比丘尼經, T. 1478), the Bhikṣuṇī Precepts of the Dharmaguptaka Tradition (Sifen biqiuni jieben 四分比丘尼戒本, T. 1431), the Commentary on Karman in the Four-Part Vinaya (Sifenlü shanbu suiji jiemoshu 四分律刪補隨機羯磨疏, X. 727), as well as a course dealing with contemporary Chan monastic regulations (“Guiyue shixian 規約實踐”: “Monastic regulations in practice”). Vinaya courses dealing with monastic precepts are reserved to fully ordained student-nuns of the more advanced promotions. Buddhist non-strictly textual courses in 2019 included Buddhist history and the study of Buddhist paraphernalia (the list of specific 2019 Buddhist courses for the different promotions are detailed in the footnote)65.

The general culture course “Modern Chinese History” was taught collectively to all classes, just as the course on Chinese calligraphy. An example of a schedule is provided in the chart below (Chart 1).

Collective religious practice for student-nuns of the academy also reflects the “distinguishing Chan feature” put forward by the academy in order to attract student-monastics and find its place in a context of national diversification and competition. Collective religious practice includes, besides 2 h of reading (dujing 讀經) and 2 h of chanting (songjing 誦經) of sutras per week, two training methods specific to the Chan tradition: collective meditation alternating quiet sitting and walking meditation (paoxiang 跑香, 6 h per week), and practical, collective work (chupo 出坡, 2 h per week), conceived as religious practice amidst movement and everyday activities. This is a peculiar feature of Dajinshan academy as compared to other female academies in China.

Turns of duty for collective work are organized according to the different promotions and include, on a daily basis, working in the kitchen (especially cleaning and cutting vegetables, cooking regular dishes such as steamed bread at breakfast, and hand-washing dishes at the end of the meals including the evening informal meal reserved to laypeople and sick or elder nuns), serving in the refectory, gardening, and cleaning the classrooms. In large public monasteries, these kinds of chores are usually accomplished by laypeople; however, Dajinshan only employs three laypeople for a community of more than 200 nuns. Additional occasional tasks add up: for example, on the occasion of the Tomb Sweeping day (Qingmingjie 清明節), student-nuns go patrolling the mountain (xunshan 巡山) where the monastery’s stupas are located in order to keep visitors’ firecrackers from setting the vegetation on fire.

On Saturday afternoon, classes and collective work are replaced by the collective chanting of sutras (songjing 誦經), as student-nuns of all promotions join the rest of the community in the chanting of the Sutra of the Fundamental Vows of the Bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha (Dizang pusa benyuanjing 地藏菩薩本願經, T. 412), the Bodhisattva of the underworld. This collective ritual activity represents a source of income for the monastery, since laypeople usually make offerings for the transfer of merit to the deceased. Student-nuns only have classes in the morning also during the summer retreat, when the afternoon is devoted to collective chanting of sutras followed by the evening meditation.

The student-nuns of the academy are also on the front line, in terms of both organization and participation, of the numerous events of the annual religious calendar, including, for example, the intensive seven-week winter meditation retreat, the seven-day water-and-land ritual (shuilu fahui 水陸法會)66, and before 2018, the summer camps for laypeople (xialingying 夏令營), of which final-year student-nuns were in charge.

It therefore appears that student-nuns at the Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns have a very busy schedule. They wake up at 3:30 a.m., the morning liturgy begins at 4:30 a.m., and the first formal meal of the day (breakfast) is at 6 a.m. Morning classes, from 8 a.m. to 10:45 a.m., are followed by the second and last formal meal of the day (lunch) at 11 a.m. After a resting time from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m., afternoon classes are scheduled between 2 and 3:45 p.m., the evening liturgy is at 5 p.m., and in the evening, they accomplish one hour of collective meditation and one hour of individual study before going to bed at 9:45 p.m. No wonder a few of them doze off during the liturgy and the evening meditation!

Student-nuns are also granted some rest, however. There are no classes on Sunday; therefore, after the end of the liturgy and the lunch, the students who are not in charge of the kitchen and refectory can take some free time, and occasionally, the oldest go out to Fuzhou or even Nanchang. Students are also granted two leaves every year: a longer leave in winter after the meditation retreat (at the time of the New Year) and a shorter leave in summer after the summer retreat, for a total of 40 days. They can use this time to return to their temple of origin or, if their tonsure master agrees67, visit their families or visit other monasteries and sacred sites (canxue 參學).

As is the case for all nuns of Dajinshan, the parents and relatives of the student-nuns can find them and stay at the monastery as long as they wish, provided that they get used to the monastery’s lifestyle. The atmosphere at the academy is solemn and benevolent at the same time. Students are allowed to use their cell phones only on the weekend, the penalty for violating this rule being the withdrawal of the already maigre monthly allowance—a penalty that works very well, according to the students.

3. Concluding Remarks

The Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns presents major distinctive features if compared to other large female institutions such as the Wutaishan Buddhist Academy for Nuns and the Sichuan Buddhist Academy for Nuns. A large-scale female academy, it offers relatively spartan facilities and only one regular curriculum that does not include classes for laywomen, nor advanced university-level studies for monastics. Unlike the two above-mentioned top-ranking institutions, the Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns is also not funded by the government, and, maybe because of its non-leading status and relatively off the beaten track position, seems to enjoy more autonomy in the choice of its curricula, including a minor proportion of secular courses and courses on politics. Especially axed on Buddhist courses (mainly Vinaya and Chan texts) and practice (Chan collective practice consisting in meditation and chores), the academy relies on graduated nuns for teaching, and it does not train its student-nuns in secular hot topics such as management, foreign languages, physical education, international etiquette, and so forth.

The case study of Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns shows that today in China, observable gender asymmetry can be associated with different causes. The fact that there are fewer nuns, fewer academies for nuns, and fewer teacher-nuns can be especially attributed to the state policy of family planning and the single-child policy, the long-term effects of which are, and will be, observable even after their recent abrogation. Society also exerts on women a higher moral pressure to marry and bear a child, and to take care of their aging parents. Different conditions, such as lower age limits in a context of fewer feminine academies, make it more difficult for women to enroll at Buddhist academies, a disadvantage that seems to be imputable to Buddhist national institutions and that Dajinshan academy has addressed by increasing the age limit for enrolling. A token of the fundamental patriarchal nature of the Chinese Buddhist system, the now-retired abbess Yinkong was denied the final consecration for her monastery: according to a former local political representative68, after local political authorities had already given their approval, the Buddhist Association took position against her intronization as superior abbot (fangzhang 方丈), and the abbot’s quarters that already were under construction have remained unused to this day. This situation is very different from the Taoist tradition, where two of the five current Daoist superior abbots (fangzhang) are women (Wang 2020, p. 186).

The case of Dajinshan academy also shows that even nominally independent female institutions still depend in many ways on the male sangha. For example, Yinkong’s master Benhuan helped to obtain political authorizations and financial funds for the academy, and his presence (as well as Yicheng’s) at the inaugurating ceremony was considered necessary to legitimize the academy—a female Buddhist master legitimizing a male institution would not be possible due to the eight gurudharma rules sanctioning the subordination of the female order to the male one. In the first decade of the academy’s activity, when it was particularly difficult to find educated nuns, Benhuan also sent his own lay female disciples to the monastery and academy: current abbess Duncheng, who received tonsure from Yinkong, is one of them. It should be noted that Benhuan always sustained Yinkong’s initiatives and actions for the advancement of women.

Notwithstanding the Chan specialization of the Dajinshan academy, the insistence on the study of Vinaya, the reintroduction of the probationer stage, and its general austerity and discipline (for example, there are no facilities for sport because it would not be considered decent)69 show that nuns themselves especially promote orthodoxy based on Vinaya as a source of legitimation, because they strive to find their place in a patriarchal Buddhist system (see Bianchi 2022). This does not only concern Dajinshan—other notable examples are Pushou monastery at Wutaishan, the largest female monastery in China, of which the academy is specialized on Vinaya studies, and the Fujian Buddhist Academy, where two Vinaya programs are preconized only for the women section70. These considerations especially concern female academies and curricula as considered in comparison with their male counterparts. More generally, the rigor of the rules is an important factor attracting people to religious life, and monasteries where Vinaya is strictly implemented are popular in both China and Taiwan.

However, in contemporary China, as it was already the case during the Republican period (Yuan 2009), independent, women-only institutions such as the Wutaishan Buddhist Academy for Nuns, the Sichuan Buddhist Academy for Nuns, and the Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns show that women in general, and female Buddhist monastics in particular, are not only subordinates to male undertakings but actively display their own agency. In effect, Buddhist education is explicitly conceived at Dajinshan as one of the different resources for fostering the status of nuns. The Jiangxi Dajinshan Buddhist Academy for Nuns aims at providing female monastics with equal opportunities in terms of education, religious practice, and ordination, three aspects that, at the monastery, are interlinked. More pragmatically, alongside the conferral of tonsures71 and of ordinations, the Buddhist academy also represents for the monastery a device to attract and keep new, young candidates at a time when religious vocations are dropping and the age of monastics is being pushed forward. Finally, it is less easy for female monasteries to find financial funds, and the family network that every student-nun brings to the monastery generates wealth through offerings for rituals and donations, the main source of income for both the monastery and the academy.

To conclude, and somehow unsurprisingly, together with ordination, Buddhist education is one of the main arenas for nuns to obtain recognition in China today—all the more if duly institutionalized.