On Temple Property Crisis In Kunming And Contests Between Officials And Monks In The 1930s And 1940s

The proposition of education initiation with temple property was born at the right moment of domestic strife and foreign aggression for late Qing government. It was implemented as "a good strategy of saving the nation" to enlighten the people and develop education and flourished in the Republic of China era and two nationwide agitation of education initiation with temple property was lifted. Education initiation with temple property in modern times on the one hand, blew development of Chinese traditional Buddhism heavily; on the other hands, it played boosting role to the conversion process of Chinese traditional Buddhism to modernization, reformed traditional Buddhism with a long time of disease and facilitated new development of Chinese Buddhism in modern times. The capital of Yunnan Province Kunming was under the influence of national education initiation with temple property and it was desperate to expand education and promote compulsory education, Kunming government formally put forward the policy of allocating temple property to expand education in 1936 and organized the Committee of Kunming Cleaning Temple Property, investigating affiliated temple properties in Kunming secretly, setting about formulating a series of methods to clean temple property and treat Buddhist monks and nuns and implementing the levying work of temple property comprehensively. During the tide of Kunming allocating temple properties and expanding education, several temple properties in the city were involved and were allocated to plan for schools. Most of the levied temples were descendent industry and temple properties had been regarded as private ownership. Therefore, the moment when this order was issued, it was strongly opposed by various temples. Even if the government had made detailed consideration and detailed plan before temple property cleaning, it met with numerous obstacles in practical work. Therefore, the cleaning work of temple properties could not be completed on time and temple property disputes resulted from this could be found everywhere. This thesis intends to explain the implementation conditions of Kunming levying temple properties and initiating education from 1936 to 1940 and organize the temple property disputes resulted from it; through representative examples, it investigates the contest between the monks and the government so as to increase understanding of Yunnan education initiation with temple property; also, from various performances and measures of the monks and government in solving temple property disputes, it evaluates the results of the performances and summarizes historical lessons, revealing how Buddhism could seek a mode of adjusting conflicts and allocate social resources reasonably when adapting to modern development.