Grasping a Famous Buddhist Mountain in China: Monumentalism and Miniaturization at the Jiuhuashan Dayuan Buddhist Culture Park

Religious scenic areas in China are widely perceived as endeavors by the government to boost local economies. While these sites are doubtlessly driven by economic pressures, I suggest that other tacit motivations may be at play. This paper uses Bourdieu’s frameworks of field and capital, and Tony Bennett’s (2006) concept of “civic seeing” to interrogate two diametrically different features at the Jiuhuashan Dayuan Buddhist Culture Park that was established by a state-owned enterprise in 2013 below the renowned Buddhist mountain Jiuhua. The first feature, a monumental Kṣitigarbha (Dizang) statue, suggests that the project is a statement of superioritybestriding other Buddhist sites at Mount Jiuhua and colossi everywhere else. The second feature, a Mount Jiuhua miniature in the park’s museum, evinces the containment of the mountain’s temples under the aegis of the state. Future studies of Chinese religious scenic areas should account for nuances of rivalry in a religious marketplace.