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印空 Yinkong (1921-)
Buddhism after Mao: Negotiations, Continuities, and Reinventions
Edited by Ji Zhe, Gareth Fisher, and André Laliberté, Honolulu, 2019
Chapter 12: Chinese Buddhism in the post-Mao era: preserving and reinventing the received tradition
by Daniela Campo
The last time I met her in 2015, Buddhist master Yinkong 印空 (b. 1921), the abbess of Jinshan and Dajinshan Monasteries in Jiangxi Province, was still an extraordinarily peppy ninety-four-year-old woman.37 She received ordination (shoujie 受戒) from Xuyun at Zhenru Monastery in Jiangxi in 1955 and Dharma transmission in the Linji lineage from Xuyun’s Dharma disciple Benhuan38 sometime after the Cultural Revolution. From Yinkong’s discourse and selfrepresentation, it clearly emerges that the prestigious lineage to which she belongs is a founding theme of her religious identity. In her lodging, many portraits and statuettes of her Dharma “grandfather” Xuyun and of her Dharma master Benhuan stand out next to those of buddhas and bodhisattvas, and together with those of a few other of Xuyun’s Dharma disciples who have recently passed away.39 The Dharma lineage to which she belongs is also displayed at Dajinshan Monastery in a large poster featuring color photographs of Xuyun, Benhuan, and herself, as well as their respective Linji Dharma generations and the Linji Dharma transmission stanza.
Xuyun’s lineage has also provided her with prestigious religious networks. In recent years, Yinkong has attended a number of highly symbolic events such as a ceremony held in 1999 to commemorate the forty years of Xuyun’s passing away, as well as rites held for the passing away of her Dharma master Benhuan in 2012. Benhuan himself made a few trips to Jinshan Monastery on special occasions. In 2010, together with Yinkong, he personally transmitted the Dharma to a group of nuns in the forty-sixth generation of the Linji lineage— that is, to his Dharma granddaughters. Finally, Dajinshan has been one of the four monasteries to have received and enshrined a share of Benhuan’s relics so far. The religious legitimation associated with Yinkong’s prestigious kinship has also complemented her personal charisma and determination to attract funds from Chinese and overseas donors. While many laypersons count among the “great Dharma protectors” (dahufa 大护法) of the Dajinshan Monastery, among whom is the Hong Kong layman Yang Zhao 杨钊 of the Glorisun Group (Xuri Jituan 旭日集团), its main monastic sponsors belong to Yinkong’s Dharma family. Yinkong recalls how Xuyun’s Dharma heir Shengyi 圣一 (1922–2010) of the Baolian Chansi in Hong Kong, has been among the main donors to the monastery since the beginning of its reconstruction in the early 1980s, offering a total of 33,000 RMB. Since that time and up until now, that is, even after his death in 2012, the most substantial funds have been provided, besides by Yinkong herself, by her Dharma master Benhuan. With a donation of 1 million RMB in 2015, Benhuan’s Hongfa Monastery in Shenzhen is the main funder of Dajinshan’s retirement home (anyang yuan 安养院).
(à paraître) Daniela Campo avec Catherine Despeux, « ‘Percer à jour l’illusion de la vie, semblable à un rêve’.
Portrait de Yinkong (1921- ), abbesse d’un temple Chan dans le Jiangxi », in Adeline Herrou (éd.),
Vieux maîtres et nouvelles générations de spécialistes religieux en Chine aujourd’hui : ethnographie
du quotidien, Paris, CNRS Editions.
2016 Daniela Campo avec Catherine Despeux, « Percer à jour l’illusion de la vie, semblable à un rêve ». Portrait de
Yinkong (1921- ), abbesse d’un temple Chan dans le Jiangxi », communication au colloque
international Vieux maîtres et nouvelles générations de spécialistes religieux aujourd’hui en Chine :
ethnographie du quotidien et anthropologie du changement social, Université Paris Ouest, Nanterre,
24-25 mars.
