Anarchy in the Pure Land
Reinventing the Cult of Maitreya in Modern Chinese Buddhism
Justin Ritzinger
Reviews and Awards
"This book sheds new light on the origins of Humanistic Buddhism, the Tantric Revival, and contemporary Sinic Buddhism. It also adds nuance to our understanding of Taixu's modernism. Scholars of modern Chinese Buddhism and global Buddhist modernities will greatly benefit from this book. Additionally, the writing is accessible enough to be read by advanced undergraduates and non-specialists." -- Cody Bahir, Religious Studies Review
"Anarchy in the Pure Land without a doubt opens up a new territory in the study of Taixu, setting a new standard for this area of research. We hope his achievements will give new insights and a new direction to the entire field of research into modern Chinese Buddhism." -- Jidong Chen, Journal of Chinese Religions
"Justin R. Ritzinger unsettles a good deal of received scholarly wisdom and forces a new look at old issues ... this book will be indispensable for anyone interested in the history of modern Chinese Buddhism or the history of modern China. I recommend it without reservation." -- Charles B. Jones, Journal of Religion
"Ritzinger's fine book provides a very valuable service, giving us not only a much-needed, highly detailed account of the thinking of a major actor in China's modern history, but also a wealth of powerful arguments about the ultimate compatibility of anarchism and Buddhist activism. Likewise, his thorough investigation of the attempted recuperation of Maitreya, the future Buddha, and of Maitreyanism, with its multiple historical instantiations in a plethora of salvific movements, to twentieth-century mainstream Buddhist orthodoxy, offers us an engaging way to think with Chinese history, revolution, and religious practice in modern times Written in an accessible style without sacrificing complexity of analysis, Anarchy in the Pure Land will be suitable for inclusion in undergraduate and graduate courses in Chinese Studies, Chinese Buddhism, Chinese history, and religious studies."--Francesca Tarocco, Reading Religion
"Justin Ritzinger has produced an illuminating historical study of the modern reinvention of the cult of Maitreya. Using the Buddhist anarchist cleric Taixu's promotion of Maitreya devotionalism, which served as a moral framework for his revolutionary utopianism, Ritzinger complicates earlier 'push' models of Buddhist reform to show a 'pull' model that approaches modernity as a source of attraction rather than compulsion. He offers important theoretical insights for scholars of modern Buddhism and historians of early twentieth-century China."--Jimmy Yu, author of Sanctity and Self-Inflicted Violence in Chinese Religion, 1500-1700
"Professor Ritzinger's audacious book upends our understanding of Taixu and shatters our view of how Republican-era Chinese Buddhist reformers saw modernity. With this theory-rich, fresh perspective, we will see neither Taixu nor Buddhism in modern East Asia in the same way again."--Hwansoo Kim, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Duke University
"Ritzinger's study of recent reformulations of Maitreya and his cult reveals unexpected links with modernizing discourses and movements in early twentieth-century China. Of particular importance is the well-known Buddhist reformer Taixu, for whom a focus on Maitreya and Maitreyan texts linked devotional and ritual practice with 'anarcho-socialist' political concerns in a much more sustained and consistent way than has been previously understood. This is a major contribution to the study of religions, politics, and history in twentieth- and twenty-first-century China and Taiwan."--Philip Clart, Professor of Chinese Culture and History, University of Leipzig, Germany
"This is a work of intellectual history. Although institutional issues are discussed in passing, the primary goal of this book is to explain the context, development, and enduring legacy of Taixu's ideas about, and devotion to, Maitreya. While intellectual history is not the only approach used by contemporary scholars of modern Chinese Buddhism, it is a favored one. Here Ritzinger employs it in classical fashion as he analyzes the development over time of the ideas of a single individual, and the impact that contemporary events and trends had on that individual's thinking. Much of his source material consists of articles from radical and Buddhist journals, and published records of lectures given by Taixu." -- Review of Religion and Chinese Society
