Slave Donations to Buddhist Parishes in Qing Mongolia

abstract:Donations of slaves to Buddhist parishes in Qing Mongolia contributed to growing parish populations and wealth in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. I argue that Buddhist parish institutions thus benefited from the practice of slavery by encouraging donations of slaves and providing a refuge for former slaves. Mongolian archival testaments document slaveholders—both women and men—offering people, livestock, and other property to parishes. Slaveholders’ stated motivations for donation include protecting the formerly enslaved from predation and re-enslavement, fulfilling an enslaved person’s request to enroll in a parish, and generating merit for donors. Buddhist parishes’ self-interested administration of the transition between slave and nonslave nevertheless led to moderation of some of the worst practices of slavery and to a reduction in the number of enslaved people.