The 9th East Asia Research Salon
Peng Tsintsin
Between Faith and Truth: The Historical Writing of Buddhism in Modern China
March 7, 2016, 5 pm
KWZ, Conference Room 0.701, Heinrich- Düker- Weg 14, 37073 Göttingen

Abstract:
The historical writing of Buddhism in modern China, as one part of the revival of Buddhism and reform of historiography, developed under the dual impact of Chinese scholarly traditions and Western intellectual trends. Most outstanding historians and Buddhist scholars such as Hu Shi, Chen Yinque, Tang Yongtong, Lü ​Chen, were all attracted by this topic. Due to their different historical viewpoints and religious commitments, this branch of study quickly gained in diversity and complexity, closely linked with almost every significant phenomenon in the process of the modernization of Chinese scholarship.

My research is mainly focused on the modern historical expression of Buddhism, seeking to illustrate why Buddhism became the object of historical writing at this particular moment; how it was organized, formed an academic ​discipline and gained legitimacy in the new knowledge system and ideological orders. I also want to show how the historiographical developments ​influenced Buddhism, which tried by way of​ control​ling or modifying its resources and discourses and by adapting to the historical framework, to fit in the modern category of “religion”.

Peng Tsintsin has been a PhD candidate at the Centre of Modern East Asian Studies (CeMEAS), Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany since 2013. The title of her dissertation is “Between Faith and Truth: Historical Writing of Buddhism in Modern China”. She is further conducting a research project under the title “The Historiography of Buddhism in Late Qing and Republican Era”.

The paper is available to interested participants via Email. Please get in touch with CeMEAS.