On the market: consumption and material culture in modern Chinese Buddhism

Abstract

For many Chinese speakers in China and elsewhere, experiencing or connecting with matters of religion often includes mediation through or with material objects. Such mediation is readily accessible to larger and larger audiences and often occurs through the consumption of religious material goods, thanks also to media technologies and the Internet. In this article, the author seeks to complicate the notion that the production and consumption of novel Buddhist religious goods can be analyzed solely in terms of 'market theory.' While on the one hand the author shows that Buddhist technologies of salvation are historically associated with materiality, she also contends that the 'aura' of Buddhist-inspired modern religious goodsin the spirit of Walter Benjamin's essay 'On Some Motifs in Baudelaire' (1939)is not so much effaced as it is reconfigured and transformed by technological mediations. KEY WORDS Chinese Buddhism; religious goods; media and religion; consumption For many people, experiencing or connecting with matters of religion includes mediation through or with material objects or religious goods. In modern China, such mediation, often intensely personal, is readily accessible to larger and larger audiences. But what religious goods are consumed and who consumes them? At the more general level, a growing body of evidence suggests that religious goods are reaching millions of Chinese and Sinitic-language-speaking audiences both in their homes and hand-held devices, through all manner of audiovisual digital production and dissemination (Chandler 2004; Tarocco 2012). By beginning to map out the diffusion of some Buddhist-inspired religious goods, practices and strategies, I wish to complement ongoing research on the qualitative/symbolic significance of religious goods and shed further light on material religion in China. I will show that modern technologies and socioeconomic factors have contributed to the multiplication, accessibility and variety of Buddhist-inspired religious goods. By focusing on a few specific case studies related to the practice of Chinese Buddhism, I will argue that religious consumption is not a new or recent phenomenon. I will argue, too, that the production and consumption of religious goods defy a simple 'market-theory' model because it also encompasses Buddhist technologies

Charismatic Communications: The Intimate Publics of Chinese Buddhism

“…I ask in what ways does technology provide the conditions for the reception of spiritual gifts and for making the sacred present. While others have examined its vital role in the production of national modernity and the institutions of the state (Ashiwa and Wank 2009), my own analysis primarily tracks the work contemporary Buddhism performs in the everyday sphere of pious self-making (Tarocco 2011;. In witnessing present-day narratives of salvation and redemption, I look at the ongoing renewal of religion in the Chinese world and take up the idea of charisma as a relationship based on the "expectation of the extraordinary" and one that "stimulates and empowers collective behavior" (Palmer 2008, 70).…”

“…Most notable among them was Hongyi 弘一 (1880-1942), who lived and died in odor of sanctity. Deeply interested in music, the monk's most famous tune, the Song of the Three Treasures (Sanbaoge 三寶歌) enjoys abiding admiration and popularity (Birnbaum 2016;Tarocco 2011). In the early 2000s, practitioners in East China told me that the exalted status of its creator, a spiritually advanced practitioner, is absolutely key to its continuing success.…”

“…I attend to the basic premise that, in the current era of hypermediation and widespread growth of the World Wide Web, WiFi, blogs and virtual communities, these media must be looked at as reinforcing social networks. Stemming from a longer history of technological mediation, the emergence of Buddhist-inspired mass media in the twentieth centuryfor instance radio in 1930s Shanghaihas furthered the possibilities of intimate involvement with venerated Buddhist clerics (Tarocco 2011;. Religionnotes Angela Zitolike the media and mediation of all sorts, "functions best when no one notices it, when people appropriate it as an always-already present aspect of social life" (2008,728).…”

Remaking Ancient Virtues for the Virtual World

“…Authority derived from the sacred texts and the divine being combined is transferred to the body of the clergy as they preach in temples to believers. It was not until the 1930s that scriptures were massively reproduced with tractates written in the vernacular to reach to a broader audience (Tarocco, 2011). However, disseminating and interpreting sutras is still viewed as a traditionally sacred act, and the authority to do this is still lays in hands of senior monks or masters.…”

The Ghost Scrolls of Manshu‐in and Tokugen‐in A Shutter‐Stopping Tale of Visual Culture, Photo Curses, and Recontextualization

“…1 1 For additional examples of this theory applied in religious contexts in Asia that involve media other than photography, see Francesca Tarocco (2011) and Yoichi Nishimoto (2015). …”