A Unique Episode in Transregional “Buddhist” Connections: The Ruan and Liang Buddhas from China to India and Beyond

Abstract

A unique episode in the transregional connections of Buddhism is illustrated through the figures of Ruan Ziyu (1079–1102) and Liang Cineng (1098–1116). Since at least the Song dynasty, Huineng (638–713), the Sixth Patriarch of Chan Buddhism, has been a revered figure in Guangdong province of China, resulting in the formation of numerous stories and legends. In the Sihui region, near the urban hub called Zhaoqing, Ruan and Liang emerged as notable disciples of Huineng, reputed to have had spiritual encounters with the Sixth Patriarch and attained Buddhahood. Known as the “Ruan Buddha” and the “Liang Buddha”, they were venerated by the Sihui people during times of droughts, turmoil, and health crisis. Over time, they became integral to Sihui identity and spread to Southeast and South Asia, particularly as people emigrated from the region in the late nineteenth century. This article examines the various stories about Ruan and Liang that circulated in Sihui and how the two buddhas have been venerated, without many links to Huineng or Buddhism, in Malaysia and India. It highlights the significance of local adaptations of Buddhist figures in transregional contexts.

1. Introduction

The history of transregional religious and cultural exchange between China and India is often framed through the canonical spread of Buddhism. Over the course of more than a millennium, this historical transformation was most vividly manifested in the diffusion of Buddhist doctrines, institutions, and worldviews through the circulation of scriptures, personnel, commodities, and ideas (Sen 2003). Recent scholarship has illuminated multiple dimensions of this process, including the translation of Buddhist scriptures from South and Central Asian languages into Chinese, the missions of Buddhist monks from India to China, the pilgrimages of Chinese monks to the subcontinent, and the transmission of material culture such as furniture, medicine, animals, plants, and minerals (Kieschnick 2003; Chen 2025). This exchange was profoundly reciprocal. Not only did Indian missionaries translate their texts into Chinese, but Chinese works were also rendered into Indian languages, for instance, the Sanskrit translation of the Daodejing 道德經 (Tao Te Ching, The Book of the Tao and its Virtue) (C. Tan 1998, pp. 149–50; Caudhurī 2001, p. 195).

Like other transregional religious traditions, Buddhism evolved into a faith movement that encompassed the entirety of East Asia. It adapted and transformed within diverse local contexts through the absorption of indigenous ideas and ritual practices. Various regions developed distinctive Buddhist traditions, among which the Chan (Zen or Won) lineage became particularly influential. By the eleventh century, during the Song dynasty, Chan had emerged as the dominant form of Buddhism in China. Its doctrines and monastic institutions subsequently spread to Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia. Chinese migrants in Southeast Asia also maintained Chan devotional practices and introduced certain ritual and conceptual elements into local religious settings, where they were further localised and reinterpreted.

With the rise of maritime commerce, a far-reaching Buddhist network took shape, linking South, Southeast, and East Asia through trade and migration (Chia 2020; Li 2023). Yet the political and cultural transformations that reshaped medieval India led to the gradual decline of Buddhism in South Asia after the tenth century. In contrast, Mahāyāna and Theravāda traditions flourished in East and Southeast Asia, respectively. While Theravāda Buddhism extended modestly into parts of East Asia, Mahāyāna Buddhism was transmitted to Southeast Asia primarily through Chinese diasporic communities. In the modern period, some of these communities further expanded to port cities in India, particularly Kolkata, where Chinese immigrants introduced their religious practices and reconstituted them within new diasporic environments.

The religious lives of these communities raise a number of questions. To what extent did Chinese migrants preserve their Buddhist faith in its original forms? Which specific practices and devotional patterns were maintained or adapted within their diasporic settings? Did they continue to venerate the canonical figures of Mahāyāna and Chan Buddhism known in China, or did they cultivate new objects of devotion unfamiliar to their homeland traditions? How were these practices negotiated within the social and cultural milieu of colonial and postcolonial Kolkata? What local elements were assimilated or reconfigured within the ritual and doctrinal life of the Chinese diasporic community? Can we still call these practices part of Buddhist tradition, or did they transform into a local popular religion?

This article examines these questions through a focused case study that explores the dynamic, adaptive, and often paradoxical circulation of religious ideas within diasporic Chinese Buddhist communities, centring on two relatively obscure yet significant figures. The journey of the Ruan Buddha (Ruanfo 阮佛, henceforth Ruan or Ruan Buddha) and Liang Buddha (Liangfo 梁佛, henceforth Liang or Liang Buddha) from China to India presents a unique and compelling case study of this phenomenon. From their deification in the Sihui region of China during the Song dynasty (960–1279) to their enshrinement in a Kolkata (previously known as Calcutta) temple, these figures embody a dynamic process of cultural transmission, where a Buddhist legacy is simultaneously preserved and transformed by emigrant identity. These figures seldom appear in conventional textual sources; however, they are more vividly manifested in local religious practices. This study, therefore, is based on original fieldwork and supplemented by textual materials gathered during my field research.

Religious practices among the Chinese who settled in India have received limited scholarly attention. These practices challenge the conventional notion of a unidirectional flow of religious beliefs, images, and practitioners from India to China. Although the religious activities of Chinese settlers were largely confined to their temples and native-place associations, they provide important evidence of India’s place in the migratory history of the Chinese in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as the broader connections between China and India during the colonial period. The establishment of the Ruan-Liang Temple in Kolkata in 1908 reflects these entanglements with transregional movements and circulations.

In the following discussion, I will first lay out the Buddhist roots of the Ruan and Liang legends that evolved in the Sihui region between the thirteenth and nineteenth centuries. By focusing on Southeast and South Asia, the later sections attempt to explain the localization of the Ruan-Liang worship and the veneration practices, using new findings from recent fieldwork in these regions.

2. The Buddhist Heritage of Ruan-Liang Worship and Local Adaptation

I have conducted extensive fieldwork within the Chinese diasporic community in India. While the principal findings from this prior research have been disseminated elsewhere, this article will specifically examine the practices centred upon two localised Buddhist figures. In this section, I will first introduce the local practices surrounding these two figures in the Chinese diasporic community and subsequently trace their historical roots in Chinese Buddhism to facilitate an understanding of their local adaptation.

My participation in the centenary celebrations for the Sea Voi Yune Leong Buddhist Temple (Sihui Ruan Liang fo miao 四會阮梁佛廟, henceforth Ruan-Liang Temple)1 on 29 November 2008, provided a valuable opportunity to observe the local community. The event, organised by the Huining huiguan 會寧會館 in Kolkata, brought together approximately 700 people, including 650 Chinese-Indians and 50 specially invited Indian guests. Although the central images in the temple are designated as the Yune (Ruan) Buddha and the Leong (Liang) Buddha, the event did not incorporate any traditional Chinese Buddhist ceremonies typically stipulated within the Buddhist canon. In fact, apart from these two images, the temple contains hardly any other artefacts or images associated with Chinese Buddhism. There are instead ritual tablets dedicated to Lu Ban 魯班, a well-known Chinese carpenter who was later deified and venerated as the ancestor of Chinese craftsmen,2 Guandi 關帝, the god of wealth, and Atchew (Yang Dazhao 楊大釗), the so-called first Chinese immigrant to India. This brings to mind the popular religious practices focused on civil and martial heroes, as well as local saints, throughout late imperial and modern China.

Given the conventional configuration of Buddhist tradition in the Mahayana and Theravada traditions, such temples typically feature the veneration of statues depicting Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Alternatively, in Chan Buddhist temples, the “true body” or mummified remains of deceased patriarchs are often worshipped. This, however, is not the situation at the Ruan-Liang Temple in the Chinese diasporic community in Kolkata. Evidently, when assessed through the lens of Buddhist textual and doctrinal traditions, the Ruan-Liang Temple can scarcely be deemed a Buddhist shrine; instead, it is rather a place that commemorates the history of migrants originating from the present-day Sihui 四會 district in Guangdong province of China, thereby preserving historical memory and offering enduring cultural connections between ancestors and contemporary residents. Many of these immigrants were carpenters, hence the image of Lu Ban, who may have arrived in Kolkata in the late nineteenth century and struggled to make a livelihood in the city. Similarly to the Chinese migrants from other cities and provinces of China, these Sihui settlers in Kolkata identified Atchew as their communal ancestor. This explains the presence of the ritual tablet dedicated to Atchew in the temple. For the immigrants from Sihui still residing in Kolkata, the Ruan-Liang Temple is a place to bond with fellow immigrants from their ancestral homeland in Guangdong, and through such bonding, they attempt to preserve their Sihui identity.3 Thus, the centenary celebration in 2008 not only marked the establishment of the Ruan-Liang Temple in Kolkata, it also commemorated the presence of the Sihui community in the Indian city for over a century. Only twenty to twenty-five such families still live in Kolkata.

The Huining huiguan, which serves as the native-place association for migrants from the Sihui and the nearby town of Guangning 廣寧, preserves a document concerning the setting up of the temple in 1908. Information extracted from this document, which I accessed during my fieldwork, indicates that the pivotal figure in this endeavour was a person named Liang Mao 梁茂, who organised a donation campaign to collect funds for establishing and maintaining the temple. The document specifically stipulates that the temple was founded primarily for the “welfare” of the local migrant community and designed to provide service to its disabled and needy members. This document enumerates the names of several members of the community who contributed financially to this cause. However, it does not explicitly affirm that the temple was organised in accordance with Buddhist institutions and rules, nor was it established for the dissemination of Buddhist teachings or the performance of canonical rituals to serve local Buddhists. Hence, it seems that this temple lacks a discernible connection with the traditional Buddhist teachings, practices, institutions, and precepts commonly observed in the Buddhist temples across China.

Many scholars, including myself, have contributed publications concerning the Ruan-Liang temple, yet several pertinent questions remain unresolved. Since my visit to the temple in Kolkata and my initial publications about it in 2008, 2009, and 2014 (Zhang 2008, pp. 49–58; Zhang 2009, pp. 53–63; Zhang 2014, pp. 429–57), important studies have appeared on the veneration of the Ruan and Liang Buddhas in Sihui (Huang 2013, pp. 104–12), Malaysia (Shi 2016, pp. 68–72), and the heritage of the Sihui migrants connected through the spread of the Ruan-Liang temples across the maritime spaces of the South China Sea and the Bay of Bengal (Sen 2019, pp. 133–68). It is clear from these publications that the Ruan-Liang temples are intwined with the identity of the Sihui people and spread to foreign regions as they emigrated during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. My study intends to shed new light on the Ruan-Liang veneration and temples by trying to explain the loss of the Buddhist heritage as the Sihui migrants settled in foreign sites.

Yet the imagined connection to Buddhism suggested by the names of these two deified figures necessitates a reconceptualisation of the temporal and spatial circulations of Buddhist ideas between China and India. Influenced by a prominent Chinese Buddhist figure, Ruan and Liang were designated as “Buddhas”, incorporated into the belief system of a local emigrant community, and ultimately reached India via Southeast Asia. From their deification in Sihui during the Song period to their enshrinement in Kolkata in the early twentieth century, the Ruan and Liang Buddhas exemplify what Prasenjit Duara (Duara 2015, p. 73) has termed “circulatory history”—a mode in which ideas, practices, and texts enter a society or locale in one form and re-emerge, significantly transformed, to travel elsewhere, even as they continue to reference their original context, often narratively. Within this framework, the weakening of explicit Buddhist associations is unsurprising. Rather, the origins and transmission of the Ruan and Liang worship among Sihui emigrants illustrate the multifaceted ways in which China and India remained interconnected over several centuries.

So, who were these two figures? Why were Ruan and Liang called “Buddhas”? how did local believers define them as “Buddhas”? How did they become the objects of local worship? How were they deified? Is there any Buddhist textual foundation for their deification? Ruan Ziyu 阮子鬱 (1079–1102) and Liang Cineng 梁慈能 (1098–1116) seem to have been historical figures who lived in the Sihui region during the Song dynasty. Their biographies appear in several editions of local gazetteers compiled over many centuries after the Song period (see below). In these biographies, the two are said to have been born into poor families and were connected to the veneration of Liuzu Huineng 六祖惠能 (the sixth Chan patriarch Huineng) of the Tang dynasty (618–907). In fact, as has been pointed out by Huang Jianhua (Huang 2013, pp. 104–5), the popular cult of Huineng in the Guangdong region was key to the emergence of the Ruan-Liang lore in Sihui. These biographies report that Ruan and Liang had spiritual encounters with Huineng during the course of them becoming the Buddhas.

Historically and regionally, the rise of the Ruan-Liang worship tradition cannot be separated from the legacy of Huineng, the legendary Sixth Patriarch of the Southern School of Chan Buddhism. Huineng became a legend by the Song dynasty primarily because of the hagiographical accounts of his life that appeared after his death. One such account appears in the Liuzu tanjing 六祖壇經 (Platform Sūtra of the Sixth Patriarch), the earliest version of which is found in Dunhuang 敦煌. While the Dunhuang version made no reference to Huineng’s presence in Sihui, the later editions included the following episode that connected the Sixth Patriarch to Sihui:

After this I went to Caoxi. There too I was beset by evil people searching for me and so fled to Sihui [County], where I spent fifteen years in all [living] with a group of hunters. During this time I preached the Dharma to the hunters when the occasion arose. The hunters had always had me guard their nets, but whenever I saw living animals in them I set them free. Whenever it was mealtime, I put vegetables in the pot for boiling the meat. They asked me about this sometimes, and I would answer, “These are just vegetables to go with the meat.”

後至曹溪, 又被惡人尋逐. 乃於四會, 避難獵人隊中, 凡經一十五載, 時與獵人隨宜說法. 獵人常令守網, 每見生命, 盡放之. 每至飯時, 以菜寄煮肉鍋. 或問, 則對曰: ‘但喫肉邊菜’.

One day I realised that the time had come to disseminate the Dharma, that I could not hide forever. Accordingly, I left [the mountains and] went to Faxing si (Monastery of the Dharma-nature) in Guangzhou, where I encountered Dharma Master Yinzong lecturing on the Nirvana Sūtra.

一日思惟: ‘時當弘法, 不可終遯’. 遂出至廣州法性寺, 值印宗法師講 ‘涅槃經’.4

Although this later version of the Liuzu tanjing does not mention Huineng’s role in the spread of Buddhism in Sihui region, the local gazetteers, Zhaoqing fuzhi 肇慶府志 (Gazetteer of Zhaoqing Prefecture) and Sihui xianzhi 四會縣志 (Gazetteer of Sihui County), report a more pronounced role of Sihui in the life of the Sixth Patriarch (Wanli Zhaoqing Fuzhi 1989; Sihui Xianzhi 1996; Guangxu Sihui Xianzhi 2003). There were also stories suggesting that Huineng attained enlightenment in Sihui. Because of these associations between Huineng and Sihui, which were mostly imaginary, the local people “restructured” the so-called “hut” where Huineng was supposed to have hid and transformed it into a temple. This temple in Sihui is now known as the Liuzu Temple.

The stories about Ruan and Liang similarly evolved over several centuries in Sihui. As Huang Jianhua points out, the earliest story about Ruan Ziyu appeared in the sixteenth-century gazetteer of the Zhaoqing prefecture, more than four hundred years after Ruan’s presumed death (Huang 2013, p. 106). In this record, Ruan is mentioned as the “Daoist Master Ruan”, who practiced Buddhism from an early age. He is also reported to have been a vegetarian and a person who practiced Buddhist precepts. One day, Ruan suddenly died after composing a poem. The gazetteer reports that after Ruan’s death, the local people venerated him during times of drought. Ruan’s story further evolved a century later, appearing in a gazetteer of Sihui County edition. A key facet of this seventeenth-century story relates to the connection between Ruan Ziyu and Huineng. The Sixth Patriarch, according to this updated story, was responsible for transmitting the Buddhist doctrines to Ruan. This link between Ruan and Huineng became an important part of the standard biography of Ruan Ziyu that appears inside various temples and pamphlets about him and are distributed in Sihui, Southeast Asia, and in Kolkata.

According to the pamphlet that was distributed in Kolkata at the commemorative ceremony in 2008, Ruan Ziyu was from a poor family in the Taotang 陶塘 area of Sihui.5 He was an orphan who had warts all over his body. He lived with his sister’s family and spent most of his time herding cows. One day, when he was digging a well to provide water for the cows, he discovered a yellow stone. The water from the well surged up several metres high and sun rays blanketed him like an umbrella. As “precious water” sprinkled on him, the warts on his body all disappeared. The yellow rays which remitted from his body gave an appearance of a Buddhist robe. On his way home, Ruan Ziyu passed by the Liuzu Temple and saw the image of the Sixth Patriarch speaking to him with a smile. He then accepted the Sixth Patriarch’s statue as his master and was subsequently recognised as a Buddha himself.

The story of Liang Cineng similarly evolved over several centuries and took definitive shape in the seventeenth century. According to this story, which also appears in temples and pamphlets distributed in Sihui and other sites, Liang was from the present-day Liang village (Liang cun 梁村). He was born on the third day of the ninth lunar month of 1098. Since his parents were poor and unable to take care of him, they gave Liang to their in-laws. Like Ruan, Liang herded cows when he was young. However, unlike Ruan, he was said to have miraculous powers. He would, for example, use a stick to draw a circle on the ground around the cows. This circle prevented the cows from wandering away and Liang would then take naps on nearby tree branches without having to keep constant watch over the animals. Similarly to Ruan, Liang also had warts all over his body. In fact, it is said in one version of the story that Liang had already become a disciple of the former and the two would go around the town begging for alms. Whatever they collected from begging, the two youths would give them away to the poor and the sick. One day with his miraculous powers, Liang drew a pond using his stick. He then took a bath in the pond and proceeded to a nearby hill. As soon as he sat down, he attained Buddhahood. He is said to have been 19 years old when this happened and died shortly thereafter.

Some of the stories about Liang Cineng also mention his encounter with Huineng when he visited the Liuzu Temple. Other versions of stories highlight his powers and skills in healing sick people and rainmaking. Unlike Ruan Ziyu, but similar to Huineng, the mummified body of Liang is venerated in the local region. This is a typical practice of Chinese Chan Buddhism (Sharf 1992, pp. 1–31), which has a long history and even practised in Taiwan (Gildow and Bingenheimer 2002, pp. 87–127). It is said that after the news of Liang’s accession to Buddhahood became known to the government authorities, his body was mummified and plated with gold. This “jinxiang zhenshen” 金祥真身 (golden true body) is now preserved in the Baosheng gusi 寶勝古寺 (The Ancient Baosheng Temple, hereafter Baosheng Temple). According to local beliefs, after Ruan and Liang attained Buddhahood Sihui started receiving regular rainfall and the region became prosperous and the people lived in peace. It is perhaps for this reason that shrines dedicated to Ruan and Liang were erected in Sihui. The one dedicated to Ruan is called Baolin Gusi 寶林古寺 (The Ancient Baolin Temple, hereafter Baolin Temple) and the one with Liang’s mummified body is known as the Baosheng Temple. Located in the Ganlan area 柑欖 of the Sihui city, the Baolin Temple was originally called Zhongyuan si 眾緣寺 (Zhongyuan Temple) and built in 1071, eight years before the birth of Ruan Ziyu. It was named Baolin Temple during the Chongning 崇寧 period of the Song dynasty (1102–1106), when the veneration of Ruan seems to have begun inside the temple (Baolin Gusi n.d.). The temple was renovated in 1628. Contemporary renovations and reconstructions took place in 1986 and 1993, some of them with donations from Sihui emigrants settled in Macau, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia.

The Baosheng Temple, located in the Mocang 莫倉 village, was originally called Huashitai 化師臺 (or the Platform of the Transformed Master) and was also built during the Chongning period. It became a place to venerate Liang Cineng from 1116. Reconstruction of the platform started in 1290 and was completed in 1295, and from then it became known as the Baosheng Temple. The temple was renovated again during the Qing period. And similar to the Baolin Temple, the Baosheng Temple was also repaired in the late 1980s and the early 1990s with funds from the overseas Sihui community. The people at Liang’s home village also constructed a temple, called Yongan si 永安寺, where his body is taken for veneration every year for three months.

Although the stories of Ruan and Liang are closely associated with the Huineng cult and the Liuzu Temple, and even though the term “Buddha” is used to describe the two key figures housed in the Baolin and Baosheng temples, there is little evidence that these two temples served solely as Buddhist institutions or as places where Buddhist monks resided. Rather, the highly localised veneration of Ruan and Liang was related to popular beliefs and practices and associated with the identity and heritage of Sihui and the people who lived there. This identity-association between Sihui residents and the heritage of Ruan and Liang they created became more prominent as people from the region started emigrating to Southeast and South Asia. From the time these temples were built, people in the Sihui region venerated Ruan and Liang for happiness, prosperity, and the health of patrons and their family members. These aspects became more pronounced as temples dedicated to Ruan and Liang were constructed in Southeast Asia and India.

3. The Spread of Ruan-Liang Veneration in Malaysia

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, hundreds of people from the Sihui region joined many others from the Guangdong province to emigrate to Southeast Asia. Many of these Sihui emigrants settled in the tin mining towns of Malaysia such as Ipoh. Later, they also settled in other towns and cities of Malaysia, including Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Pahang, Negeri Sembilan, Sarawak, and Sabah. Others from Sihui also moved to Singapore and Hong Kong. It seems that some of those who reached Kolkata may have remigrated from Southeast Asia.

The Huining huiguans, established where the Sihui and Guangning migrants lived, oversaw the welfare of the community, set up graveyards, and organised communal events to sustain the ancestral identity of these settlers. These huiguans were also responsible for establishing the Ruan-Liang temples, either as free-standing constructions or shrines within the huiguan buildings, in Southeast and South Asia. According to Shi Cangjin, there are around fifteen Huining huiguans in Malaysia (Shi 2016, p. 69). During my fieldwork in Kuala Lumpur in 2025, I was informed that more than twenty Ruan-Liang temples can be found in various cities across Malaysia.6 The earliest of these may have been built in 1869 in the Bangsar 孟沙 area of Kuala Lumpur. The temple was first relocated to the Jinjang 增江 area in 1969 before being moved to its current location in the Kepong 甲洞 area in 2009. Both of these areas were where the Sihui community had resettled. With its relocation, the temple’s name also changed, and it is now known as the Kepong Yuen Leong Temple 甲洞富城園阮梁公聖佛廟, or Persatuan Pemuja-Pemuja Buddha Yuen Leong.7 Other examples include the Kampar Seng Fatt Temple 金寶聖佛廟in Perak, which was established before 1913, the Ruan Liang Sheng Fo Old Temple 阮梁聖佛古廟 built in Perak in 1919, the Petaling Jaya Yuen Leong Sing Fatt Temple 千百家新村阮梁聖佛宮 in Selangor that was set up in 1920, the Petaling Jaya Yeong Leong Beow Temple 八打靈再也阮梁聖公佛 in Selangor built in 1953, and the Salak Selatan Yuen Leong Temple 沙叻秀阮梁公聖佛廟, which was first established in 1964 and later relocated to the Salak South area.

Based on my recent field research in several Ruan-Liang temples in Malaysia, there are some unique features of these temples not found in either Sihui or Kolkata. Among these, the most notable is a female deity Wenshi Zhenxian 文氏貞仙 (Immortal Lady Wen), who is worshipped alongside the Ruan and Liang Buddhas on the main altar of each temple. Similarly to Ruan and Liang, Lady Wen was also a resident of Sihui. She married a man surnamed Bao 鮑 early in life, but tragedy struck when he was killed by a tiger while gathering firewood in the mountains. She devoted herself to her husband’s family, rejecting remarriage and choosing instead to live alone in the mountains. On the ninth day of the ninth lunar month in the year 801, villagers saw her ascend into the sky on an auspicious cloud, achieving immortality. A shrine was subsequently built for her, where her carved image was also placed. She was revered and venerated as a protective deity. According to temple publications (Zengjiang Beiqu Ruan Liang Shengfo Miao 2006, pp. 4–5) and my interviews with local residents, this forms the “liangfo yixian 兩佛一仙” (Two Buddhas and One Immortal) tradition, which is present in all Ruan-Liang temples in Malaysia. A typical arrangement on the main altar, from left to right, is the Wenshi Zhenxian, followed by the Ruan Buddha and the Liang Buddha. Sometimes, a photograph of Liang’s mummified body from the Baosheng Temple in Sihui is also placed right behind the Liang Buddha. Together these three divinities reflect the local beliefs of the Sihui people. As they migrated to Malaysia, their continued veneration served to maintain an imagined connection to their ancestral homeland and facilitate the preservation of their Sihui identity in a new environment.

Another unique feature of Ruan-Liang veneration in Malaysia relates to the incorporation of local beliefs and experiences. This is evident in the presence of the Nadu gong 拿督公 (Datuk) shrines within the Ruan-Liang temple complexes. Usually wearing a Malay dress, the figure seems to represent a local person whom the early Chinese settlers may have encountered. Such shrines are common not only in the Ruan-Liang temples, but also in the residential areas of Chinese settlements throughout Malaysia. As Tansen Sen (Sen 2019, p. 151) pointed out, “Datuk gong is a Chinese appreciation of the Malay Muslim keramat (miracle worker) into their religious pantheon”. Tan Chee-Beng (C.-B. Tan 2018, p. 69) identifies the figure as a “Sino-Malayan earth deity or guardian deity”, which reflects a hybrid cultural identity. He notes that while the deity serves a territorial function similar to the Chinese Tudi gong (God of the Earth), its unique ritual offerings and veneration practices represent a fusion of Chinese and Malayan traditions. The Nadu gong is also venerated as a god of wealth in some temples, as he is typically depicted holding a gold ingot in his left hand and a Malay dagger (kris) or staff in his right.

Besides the figures discussed previously, other deities and altars are also evident in various complexes of Ruan-Liang Buddhist temples in Malaysia. For instance, in the Kepong Yuen Leong Temple, a side hall dedicated to Maitreya is located to the right of the main hall. The plaque “Mile songzifo 彌勒送子佛” (The Child-Giving Maitreya) emphasises his role as a fertility deity worshipped by the community. It seems that this idea and practice of the Child-Giving Maitreya might be inspired by the cult of Guanyin Bodhisattva as the Child-Giving Goddess that was popular in South China and Southeast Asia (Yu 2000). Inside the main hall, besides the “two Buddhas and one immortal” mentioned previously, separate shrines for Guandi and Guanyin 觀音 are situated to the left and right of the main altar. Similarly, at the Salak Selatan Yuen Leong Temple, there are shrines dedicated to the Sixth Patriarch Huineng and Guanyin. Other Taoist deities, such as the Jade Emperor 玉皇大帝 and Taishang Laojun 太上老君, can also be found in other Ruan-Liang temples in Kuala Lumpur.

The diverse nature of these Ruan-Liang temples in Malaysia is reflected in their activities and rituals, which are a synthesis of multiple religions and beliefs, including but not limited to the birthdays of Ruan and Liang, Chinese New Year and other festivals, and charity events. Compared to the Buddhist ceremonies and Taoist rituals, these activities are more focused on community gatherings and performances. As Sen (Sen 2019, p. 155) describes, “There are no Buddhist monks present, nor any proselytizing of Buddhist teachings at these temples.” While some of these temples do house shrines for Buddhist figures like Guanyin, Maitreya, and the Sixth Patriarch Huineng, the role of Buddhism appears to be marginalised compared to the Buddhist-centric temples in Sihui. The presence of Buddhist elements in these temples is therefore more symbolic, with their function superseded by secular and culturally integrated activities that serve to connect the Sihui immigrant community in Malaysia with their ancestral homeland.

4. The Evolvement of Ruan-Liang Tradition in Kolkata

The spread and development of the Ruan-Liang tradition in Malaysia provides a necessary comparative context for examining its evolvement in South Asia. This section focuses on Kolkata, where the veneration of Ruan-Liang is analysed to reveal the adaptation and transformation of Chinese religious practices within this specific colonial urban environment. The subsequent examination will trace how foundational figures like Atchew and the early Chinese settlers of Bowbazar shaped collective memory and ritual space among the Chinese community in Kolkata. By detailing these developments through local temples, cemeteries, and trade networks, I aim to understand how a sense of belonging and continuity was constructed across cultural and geographic boundaries, focusing specifically on the unique Ruan-Liang veneration observed at a single temple in Kolkata.

The historical narrative of the Chinese community in South Asia, crucial for understanding this tradition’s evolvement, conventionally begins with a person named Atchew, who is said to have arrived in British India in 1778. Soon after his arrival, Atchew received a large land grant from Warren Hastings (1732–1818), the then Governor-General of Bengal, where he set up a sugar mill and brought Chinese labourers. Located not far from Kolkata, this place later became known as Achipur. As noted above, Atchew became recognised as the ancestor of all Chinese who subsequently settled in South Asia.8 Almost concurrently, Chinese migrants were also settling in Kolkata, the capital of British India. The first eyewitness account of the Chinese settlers in the city comes from a Vietnamese traveller called Ly Van Phuc 黎文馥 (1785–1849), who reports that there were “several hundreds” of Chinese residents in Kolkata, with the majority of them coming from Fujian and Guangdong provinces of China. He also notes that the Chinese settlers had already established their own residential area with temples dedicated to Chinese deities (Salmon 1999, pp. 383–402). An account by Englishman named Chaloner Alabaster (1838–1898) written in 1857 confirms that this Chinese settlement noted by Ly Van Phuc was in the Bowbazar area.

Calling the area a “Chinese colony”, Alabaster describes the economic activities and religious institutions of the Cantonese and Hakka Chinese. According to him, the Chinese at that time were mostly “shoe-makers, opium-sellers, carpenters, cabinet-makers, and hogslard manufacturers” (Alabaster [1858] 1975, p. 369). These people had already established several temples, including one dedicated to Guandi and another to the Goddess Tianhou. Explaining the importance of the temples, he writes, “Living in and about Cossitollah and Durrumtollah, they have built a fine temple in one of its lanes, thereby constituting themselves a community, for without a josshouse there is no community in China” (Alabaster [1858] 1975, p. 370). Alabaster reports that there were three Chinese cemeteries in that neighbourhood, an indication that there were more than a few Chinese residing in the area. In regard to the trade in opium by some of the Chinese living in the area, Alabaster says that “the only other business to any extent undertaken by the shoemakers is that of the preparation and sale of opium and charas, which they probably have taken to as lucrative, and reminding them of home” (Alabaster [1858] 1975, p. 377). Alabaster also notes that there were about 500 Chinese in Kolkata at that time, but very few women among them.9

During the second half of nineteenth century new Chinese immigrants arrived in the city. This new wave of Chinese immigration to China, ensuing from political unrest in Qing China, not only led to an increase in the number of Chinese living in the Bowbazar area, but since many of the immigrants were women and children, it also transformed the composition of the Chinese community (Liang 2007, pp. 397–410). These developments resulted in the establishment of new businesses, associations, and temples.

Religious practices among the Chinese community in Kolkata are diverse and complex, as they are at other sites of Chinese settlements in Southeast Asia.10 On the one hand, these practices are part of traditional and folk beliefs brought to the city by the Chinese migrants. On the other hand, some religious practices were acquired after these migrants became long-term residents of the city. Examples of the first kind of religious practices include the veneration of Chinese deities such as Tianhou 天后, Guandi, and the female bodhisattva Guanyin. Some of the beliefs that were acquired in India include the worship of Atchew and the Hindu goddess Kālī. There are also significant numbers of Chinese individuals in Kolkata who have converted to Christianity and some who have become Muslim.

There are also several Buddhist temples established by Chinese migrants over several decades, albeit they date from a much later period in the history of the Chinese in Kolkata. The two main Buddhist temples frequented by the Chinese community are the Zhonghua fosi 中華佛寺 (Chinese Buddhist Temple) and Xuanzang si 玄奘寺 (Xuanzang Temple), both of which were built after 1960s. Before this, the Chinese community in Kolkata had already contributed to the establishment of Chinese Buddhist temples at various sacred Buddhist sites in India: A Zhonghua fosi 中華佛寺 (Chinese Buddhist Temple) was established in Sarnath in 1921,11 the Zhonghua dajue si 中華大覺寺 (Mahabodhi Chinese Temple) in Bodhgaya in 1923, the Huaguang si 華光寺 (Huaguang Temple) in Balrampur in 1923, the Shuanglin si 雙林寺 (Shuanglin Temple) in Gorakhpur in 1927,12 and the Zhongguo miao 中國廟 (China Temple) in Nalanda in 1931. In addition, a Buddhist association for the Chinese Indians, known as the Chinese Buddhist Community of India, was established in Ajmer in 1932 (Zhang 2008, p. 53; Yindu Huaqiao Zhi 1962, pp. 93, 103).

Many of the early temples were managed by the huiguans, which also administered the graveyards (shanzhuang 山莊) for their community members. Established in 1838, the Yixing 義興 huiguan, for example, set up a Guandi temple and managed the Yixing shanzhuang. The Siyi 四邑 huiguan, dating from 1845, built a Guanyin temple and managed the Siyi shanzhuang. Some of the other huiguans in Kolkata included the Dong’an 東安 huiguan (established in 1864), the Nanshun 南順 huiguan (established in 1894), and the Jiaying 嘉應 huiguan (established in 1907), three of which housed Guandi temples on their premises. Some of these huiguans also set up Chinese schools for their community members. It is within this context of the unique history of the Chinese in South Asia, the diversity of these communities, and the variety of religious practices they engaged in that the Ruan-Liang Temple in Kolkata must be understood.

Established in 1908 at the same time as the Huining huiguan, the Ruan-Liang Temple in Kolkata symbolised the identity of the migrants from Sihui and Guangning, as such institutions did in Southeast Asia. Similarly to the case in Malaysia, the temple in Kolkata tells the exclusive story of this specific branch of Chinese migrants, who mostly engaged in carpentry and perceived Atchew as their ancestor. The temple is indicative of the triple identity of this group of migrants: their Sihui/Guangning ancestry, their Chinese-Indian experience, and their profession as carpenters. The statues of Ruan and Liang, the spirit tablets dedicated to Atchew and Lu Ban found inside the temple, are evidence of these overlapping identities of the Sihui migrants in Kolkata. All indications are that the temple, with the office of the Huining huiguan adjacent to it, served as a community gathering area and a veneration place for this specific group of migrants. It is unlikely other Chinese settlers in Kolkata venerated at the temple since the main deities on the altar were associated only with the Sihui region. Indeed, like the Ruan-Liang temples in Malaysia, the temple in Kolkata also served to link the migrant community with their ancestral homeland. Also like the temples in Malaysia, the Ruan-Liang Temple in Kolkata shows no evidence of any sort of Buddhist rituals or ceremonies. It should be noted, for example, that there are no prominent images of the Śākyamuni Buddha inside the temple.

This absence of Buddhist elements in the Ruan-Liang temples in Malaysia and Kolkata may have to do with the fact that the immediate concerns of the migrant groups from Sihui mostly related to their daily struggles and financial uncertainties as they resettled in foreign lands. Safety, wellbeing, and a stable future were no doubt the key yearnings of these migrants. Thus, for spiritual support to meet such wishes, they turned to their local deities and mixed their existing beliefs with what they experienced at the new sites of settlement. An additional reason for the absence of Buddhist elements could be the lack of Buddhist practices and institutions at the places these migrants settled. This included the absence of the cult of Huineng and that of a Chinese Buddhist clergy. Furthermore, these migrants, struggling with their livelihood, had no urgency to (re)discover the Buddhist heritage of Ruan and Liang. What mattered to them was the divine powers of Ruan and Liang to protect them, preserve their ancestral identity, and provide them space for communal activities in foreign lands. As such, Buddhist teachings, rituals, and ceremonies were not the key aspects of the Ruan-Liang veneration in Sihui, and as the spatial and temporal distance between their ancestral land grew greater, the only “Buddhist” element that remained at these new places of worship was the honorific title of “Buddha” attached to the names of these two figures.

5. Conclusions

The veneration of Ruan and Liang in Sihui emerged from regional circumstances and in the local beliefs that were included in local gazetteers. The two divinities served to protect the local people from the ravages of climate, political disorder, and suffering from illness. The evolution of their biographies from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, as outlined above, indicates the growing popularity in the believe in these two figures in Sihui. The association with Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch of Chan Buddhism, and the suffix “fo” or “Buddha” attached to the names of Ruan and Liang served to legitimise their stories and spiritual prowess. More importantly, Ruan and Liang became deeply intertwined with local religious practices, heritage, and identity. Therefore, it is not surprising that when people from the region emigrated to foreign lands, they carried their faith in the local divinities with them.

The Ruan-Liang temples and the veneration of the two Sihui Buddhas in Southeast Asia and Kolkata reflect the popular faith and beliefs of the people whose ancestors once lived in the Sihui region. However, new experiences and wishes resulted in the incorporation of foreign elements that became part of their religious practices and traditions at these sites. Together, the veneration of Ruan and Liang in Sihui, Malaysia, and Kolkata indicate the importance of popular or localised Buddhism in Guangdong in creating new religious traditions. They also reveal the long history of religious practices and emigration of the Sihui people, which often gets lost within the larger categories, such as “Cantonese”, used to examine patterns of Chinese immigration. Additionally, they demonstrate the importance of sustaining distinct identities and imaginary connections to ancestral homeland among those who have lived in foreign lands for several generations.

The Ruan-Liang temples and the continued worship of these “two Buddhas” in Southeast Asia and Kolkata embody the popular faith of Sihui migrants, while also illustrating processes of localization and reinterpretation. As new social experiences and cultural encounters unfolded, foreign ritual elements were absorbed into their practices. Together, these transregional cases highlight the role of popular or vernacular Buddhism in shaping new religious traditions and sustaining diasporic identities. They also call attention to the longer history of Sihui emigration, often obscured within broader designations such as “Cantonese migration”, and the community’s creative efforts to maintain a symbolic connection to their ancestral homeland across multiple generations.

Methodologically, this article demonstrates the value of combining textual analysis with sustained ethnographic fieldwork in the study of transregional religious phenomena. While archival sources and local gazetteers preserve the historical memory of the Ruan–Liang worship tradition, only field observation and community interviews reveal how this practice continues to live and evolve in the present. By situating textual evidence within the lived experience of diasporic communities, this study shows that the making of Buddhist modernity in the Indian Ocean world cannot be fully understood through texts or institutions alone; it equally requires attention to the agency of local actors who continually reinterpret and reshape their religious tradition in response to changing historical and social environments.

The case of the Ruan and Liang Buddhas invites a broader reconsideration of how “Buddhism” as a category operates in transregional and diasporic contexts. Rather than tracing a linear diffusion of canonical doctrines or institutional lineages, this study highlights a circulatory model of religious transmission, in which religious meanings are continually reconstituted through local agency and historical contingency. The transformation of Ruan and Liang from Buddhist disciples into local deities, and eventually into transnational icons venerated in Malaysia and India, reveals the porous boundaries between Buddhism, popular religion, and regional identity. Their journeys complicate the notion of a monolithic “Chinese Buddhism” and demonstrate that diasporic religiosity often functions less as doctrinal preservation than as cultural translation and adaptive remembrance. By foregrounding field-based evidence of worship practices and material culture, this study underscores the necessity of integrating ethnographic and textual approaches in order to understand how religious forms travel, mutate, and endure across space and time. Ultimately, the Ruan–Liang tradition exemplifies how mobile communities actively reshape inherited religious categories, thereby contributing to a more dynamic and plural understanding of Buddhist modernity in the Indian Ocean world.