Desire, wealth and gender: anti-Buddhist prejudice in the Late Qing Dianshizhai Pictorial

Abstract

This research examines prejudice against Buddhists expressed in the late Qing publication Dianshizhai Pictorial and its underlying causes. As an influential and widely circulated pictorial of the era, the Pictorial exhibited a systematic bias in its portrayal of Buddhist monks and nuns. First, the pictorial depicted them as violators of monastic precepts, highlighting their inability to transcend worldly desires, with a particular focus on behaviors related to sexuality and wealth. Second, its criticism reveals a gender disparity: compared to monks who violated precepts of celibacy, nuns who committed similar transgressions received greater leniency. I argue that this stemmed from the nuns’ “liminal” status within the Confucian social order; their conduct both reflected the authors’ desires and anxieties, and reinforced beliefs in the necessity Confucian family ethics. Third, the substantial wealth of Buddhist clergy was subjected to widespread condemnation, closely linked to the frequent natural disasters of the late Qing and the quasi-public nature of temple assets. The Pictorial subjected Buddhist “unearned income” and use of funds to intense moral scrutiny. Finally, I suggest that public disillusionment with official military forces after the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-5) inspired an embrace of civilian martial traditions, symbolized by the Shaolin Temple. This shift represented a turning point that enabled Buddhists to begin reforming their public image during the late Qing and early Republican period.