PICTURE CHINA

Religion has always been an important part of Chinese life. China’s native religions of Confucianism and Taoism have been practiced for thousands of years and Buddhism was introduced from India during the Tang Dynasty (618-906 AD). Christianity and Islam were brought to China via the Silk Road and today there is a significant Muslim minority of ten million people residing mostly in China’s northwest provinces.

During the Cultural Revolution, religion was portrayed as feudal superstition and was ferociously attacked by the Chinese government. In the decade from the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies, the Red Guard destroyed most evidence of the religious history of the country. Hundreds of thousands of temples and monasteries were ruined and religious and philosophical texts were burned. No area of China was more severely impacted by the religious backlash of the Cultural Revolution than Tibet. In 1959 Tibet had a thriving community of 2700 Buddhist monasteries and temples; after the destruction, only eight monasteries remained with fewer than one thousand monks and nuns.

With Mao’s death in 1976 and the liberalizations of the 1980’s, religion began to slowly reenter Chinese life. Despite remaining restrictions, nowhere in China is religion a more integral part of daily life than in Tibet. Monasteries are being rebuilt and, though at much lower numbers, monks and nuns are beginning to refill them. Pilgrims flock to Tibet’s religious sites and the most holy places are constantly awash with the devout who come to pray and prostrate.