Carsten Krause (Hamburg)

Since the revival of Buddhism in China after the end of the 1970s monasteries have been reactivated under very different circumstances. This process will be analyzed with regard to those Chinese “Ancestral Monasteries” that have been named after one of the first six Chan patriarchs.

The investigation focuses on the relevance of the patriarchs’ legacy in the context of these monasteries’ contemporary self-representation. Although each of those monasteries has gone through a different historical development, it will be asked, how far there are common patterns for the new generation of Buddhist abbots to (re)present the monasteries and themselves in the light of former traditions. Further, it will be questioned, how far the process of revival is leading to a balance between the challenges of traditions and modernization.

Carsten Krause has specialized in the past and present of Chinese Buddhism since the early 1990s. After graduating at the University of Hamburg in 1997, he spent half a year at the Nanhua University in Taiwan. He then continued studying Chinese Buddhism at the University of Hamburg and completed his PhD with a dissertation on the reception and influence of Buddhism in medieval China.

Since becoming the director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Hamburg in 2007, Carsten Krause has established ongoing relationships with the Chinese Buddhist Association of China and several Buddhist monasteries and has continued his research to focus on questions related to the revival of Chinese Buddhism in contemporary China. He organized a symposium entitled “Challenges for the Revival and Future Development of Chan-Buddhist Monasteries in China” at the Numata Center for Buddhist Studies of the University of Hamburg in 2015 and has presented papers at various international conferences. Since 2017 Carsten Krause has also been offering lectures for students of the Department of Chinese Language and Culture and the Numata Center for Buddhist Studies of the University of Hamburg on the topic of Buddhism in contemporary China.