It Ends Only to Begin

To turn back to South Vietnam, Premier Ky was reported to have said that he believed the Buddhists were finished as a political force in South Vietnam. In saying this, Ky would have referred only to the militant Buddhists who had failed to overthrow him. The period of Buddhist militancy was over, but the political power of the Buddhists still continued. The power of the temple remained strong and the monks still held an important place in the community. The role of the moderate Buddhists remained a key factor in Vietnamese politics. But their force changed from mobs to ideas. The most important source of their influence would be positive efforts such as those activities initiated in early 1964 and the unifying power of the faith that united people of different regions. It is these positive efforts and power that had been the Buddhists' lasting contribution to the nation-building of Vietnam. Their impending failure would lie in that they might have returned to the right direction when it was too late.

After 2510/1967, South Vietnam still fared in the period of political instability and the war continued between the South Vietnamese government backed by U.S. forces and the Viet Cong assisted by North Vietnamese troops. In 2512/1969, U.S. public reaction to the endless war forced a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops till the complete withdrawal was effected in 2516/1973. In 2518/1975, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces stepped up their offensive in the South. With unbelievable swiftness, they swept the coastal cities and took Saigon almost unopposed. The long war ended as the South Vietnamese government surrendered to the Viet Cong on April 30, 1975. Then, on July 2, 1975, Vietnam became officially reunified under Communist government. Saigon was changed to Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi became the capital of the reunified Vietnam.

With the end of the long war, followed long years of the outflow of hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing Vietnam, especially the Vietnamese of Chinese origin. According to U.S. officials, 100,000 Vietnamese 'boat people' might have died in the sea. While among these refugees who struggled desperately for life outside their country many suffered death, others survived only to further experience hard lives, and still others enjoyed better lives in some foreign countries, in their own country life is not better for most of their fellow country-people. The two decades of war left, in addition to the thousands of lost, maimed and dislocated Vietnamese people, "a legacy of bomb craters, street defoliated forest,"1 rendering the land almost uncultivatable. Moreover, while the country is facing serious food shortage and a general economic distress, hundreds of thousands of her people are inducted into armed forces as the Hanoi government is preoccupied with a continuing war in Cambodia. As regards the fate of Buddhism in today Vietnam we know too little. Though Buddhism cannot be wiped out, it seems to have faded into obscurity. All in all, the story of Vietnamese Buddhism can teach her Buddhist friends many valuable lessons. At least, one of these lessons should be that this story should not be repeated.

A Glimpse of Buddhist Developments in China and Korea
A SHORT-LIVED BUDDHIST REFORM IN CHINA
In China, Tibet and Nepal, political events have also come into prominence and the progress of Buddhism has been checked or obscured. China which was for long centuries a stronghold of Buddhism and the main source of the Buddhist tradition of the Northern School came into the period of decline with the end of the 13th Christian century. There were some short intervals of revival but long days of exploitation, suppression and destruction. Throughout this period, the ruling school was Chan, but it was the Chan whose practice had fallen into habit and which placed a low value on intellectual pursuits. It was just in the early part of the present century that a remarkable reform was undertaken by the modernist monk Tai-Hsu (2432-2490/1889-1947).
The destruction of monasteries and scriptures by the rebels who professed Christianity during the Tai-ping rebellion (2393-2407/1850-1864) stimulated both monks and laymen to begin a revival. But it was after the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty and the founding of the Republic of China in 1911 that an active reform started. In response to the challenge of a new intellectual climate in which traditional and conservative ideas and institutions were rejected and Marxist ideas were introduced, the monk Tai-Hsu led his followers in a movement to defend the religion, propagate the faith, reform the order and promote education. Schools with Western-style classroom instruction were set up. Welfare and economic development work was taken up. The
Chinese Buddhist Society was organized in 2472/1929. New contacts with Buddhists of other Asian countries were opened up. Institutes for the training of Buddhist leaders were founded in various parts of China.

The study of Buddhist texts was revived and reformed. Numbers of Buddhist periodicals were increased. And there was a great revival of interest in Buddhism of the Pure Land school. It is said that in 2473/1930 there were 738,000 monks and nuns and 267,000 Buddhist temples in China and about 60 or 70 percent of China's lay Buddhists belonged to Pure Land groups. In the meantime, Chan abbots took to traditional lines for the revival of their institutions.

The Communists took over China's mainland in 2492/1949 and then Buddhist activities fell into obscurity. It is said that a Chinese Buddhist Association was organized in 2496/1953 to bring the large Buddhist community under government control. Many monks fled to Hong Kong and Taiwan to continue their free activities. The Chinese government took measures to preserve famous and beautiful old temples, Buddhist sacred places and art works. Under the Great Cultural Revolution, however, an unrevealed number of Buddhist buildings and monuments were destroyed by the Red Guards.

In 2521/1978, as an attempt to render more precisely the sounds of Mandarin Chinese, China adopted a new system for spelling most Chinese names in the Roman alphabet, called the Pinyin system. According to this new spelling, Mao Tse-tung becomes Mao Zedong, Chou En-lai becomes Zhou Enlai, Chu Teh becomes Zhu De and Peking becomes Beijing.

Although the constitution of the People's Republic of China provides for religious freedom, religious practice is not encouraged. Under Mao, many restrictions were placed on traditional rituals and religious observances. After the death of Mao Zedong in 2519/1976 and under Deng Xiaoping's modernization programme, many restrictions have been removed and the people have been much more free to observe custom and tradition. However, though many famous old temples have been restored, foreign visitors meet with very few Chinese monks. Buddhist activities of real significance have been unheard of. To many, Buddhism in Communist China has been a kind of 'Showcase Buddhism'.