FOGUANGSHAN. Founded in 1967, Foguangshan (Buddha's Light Mountain) had by the beginning of the twenty-first century developed into one of the most influential Buddhist organizations in Taiwan (the Republic of China, ROC) and had opened more than 150 temples in nearly thirty countries around the world. Approximately 1,300 clerics were within the Foguang ranks in 2004, and the order's lay society, known as the Buddha's Light International Association (BLIA), had a membership in the hundreds of thousands. Activities sponsored by Foguangshan and BLIA draw more than three million participants annually.

The order's founder, Master Xingyun, was born in 1927 in Jiangsu province of mainland China. He took his vows of renunciation at age twelve in Qixia Temple, Nanjing. Ten years later he accompanied the Nationalist army as it retreated to Taiwan. Unlike most monks who had come from the mainland, Master Xingyun did not remain in Taipei (the province's capital), but instead took...