Hybrid Courts and Hybrid Laws: The Legal Governance of Buddhism in Imperial China

Abstract:This article investigates how the state and the Buddhist establishment negotiated their respective jurisdictions in China between the fourth and early twentieth centuries, focusing particularly on the legal procedures for adjudicating ordained Buddhist offenders. Scholars have proposed three theories on how ordained Buddhist offenders' cases were assigned to different trial venues: the internal vs. external offences distinction, the grave vs. light offences distinction, and the civil vs. criminal offences distinction. Most scholars concur that state lay courts have jurisdiction over grave external criminal cases, while Buddhist monastic courts oversee light internal civil offences. However, their theories only reveal some aspects of the battle over the jurisdictional boundaries of the Buddhist establishment and the state. In this article, I demonstrate that the state and the Buddhist clergy reformed the existing legal infrastructure collaboratively by creating hybrid laws and courts in a tripartite legal system to replace existing dichotomous lay and monastic courts and laws. By creating this tripartite legal infrastructure, rulers in imperial China gradually tightened the state's jurisdictional control over the Buddhist establishment, compromising somewhat, but never completely giving up jurisdictional control over the Buddhist establishment in their negotiation with eminent monks who demanded more jurisdictional autonomy for the Buddhist clergy.摘要:本文研究國家和佛教僧團在四世紀到二十世紀的中國是如何協商界定他們各自的司法管轄權的，重點關注處理犯罪僧尼的司法程序。此前的學者提出了三種理論來解釋審理犯罪僧尼的地點是如何決定的：內部犯罪和外部犯罪的區別，重罪和輕罪的區別，以及民事和刑事犯罪的區別。大部分的學者認同這樣一種觀點，認為國家的世俗法庭對嚴重的外部犯罪有司法管轄權，但佛教寺院的法庭則負責處理內部的輕罪。然而，這些理論僅僅揭示了佛教僧團和國家之間爭奪司法管轄權的鬥爭的一些方面。在本文中，我將展示國家和佛教僧團是如何通過引入一套混合法律和一個混合法庭來合作改革現有的法律體系，從而將一個世俗和佛教寺院二元對立的法律體系和法庭改革為一個三足鼎立的系統。通過建立這個三足鼎立的法律結構，古代中國的統治者逐步加強了國家對佛教僧團的控制，偶爾妥協，但在跟佛教僧團的高僧們就給予僧團更多司法自治權的談判中從未放棄對佛教僧團的司法控制。