Utopian Visions of Buddhism from Medieval China: Examining Chinese sources in light of Collins’ work

This paper will consider how utopian ideology may have developed within medieval Chinese Buddhism. By comparing Collins' analysis of the early Buddhist (Pāli) monastic traditions, which suggests that utopianism was not a significant element of this tradition, with the work of other scholars such as Forte, who argue that utopianism was a prominent element within the medieval Chinese Buddhist milieux, this paper considers why and how this shift may have taken place and whether it can be regarded as one of the characteristic changes that occurred in tandem with the transmission of Buddhism to China, i.e. "sinification," or may have come from some other source. In other words, the paper aims to consider what may have catalyzed the development of utopian thinking within Chinese Buddhism, assuming such characteristics were absent from earlier forms of Buddhism, as Collins suggests