Competing Transnational Buddhisms: Yu Guanbin’s Contribution to Taixu’s Buddha-ization Movement in 1920-30s Shanghai

The Stanford University Center for East Asian Studies presents a discussion of ancient divination practices

Hwansoo Ilmee Kim, Assistant Professor, Korean Buddhism and Culture, Duke University

This talk concerns the work of the prominent Korean lay Buddhist and entrepreneur Yu Gwanbin (1891-1933) in Shanghai during the mid-1920s and early-30s. Yu collaborated with the Chinese Buddhist reformer Taixu (1890–1947) to promote a transnational Buddhist discourse called “the Buddha-ization movement” (fohua yundong). Yu also acted as a bridge between Korean and Chinese Buddhism by undertaking the project of rebuilding an eleventh-century Korean temple, Kory?sa, in Hangzhou. In this talk, I examine how Yu’s engagement in these projects is a distinctive case of modern East Asian Buddhism in which national/transnational and religious/political visions intersected and conflicted with each other.

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