The Authentic Belief Of Mahayana Buddhism

This thesis emphasizes the ’authenticity’ of Buddhism,mainly through a vast collection of reference and data together with an objective analysis to finally come out with the reasons and purpose of the title mentioned.The content not only depicts the origin of this ’authenticity of Buddhism’ and obstacles faced by Taiwanese Buddhist Organizations but also discuss more on the content and purpose of ’authentic belief’ as well as the influence to the contemporary Buddhist society in Taiwan.There are altogether four chapters.The respective synopsis is as follows:The introduction in the first place is to briefly bring out the background and purpose of writing this thesis and at the same time,elaborate the importance of ’authentic Buddhism’ along with the value and true meaning of this article through a thorough research in the right track.First chapter depicts the four stages how the problems confronted and solved by the Taiwanese Buddhists.They are Qing Dynasty,Japanese Occupation,The Curfew and De-curfew stages respectively.Take Japanese Occupation(1895-1945)for example,the Japanese regime started to rule Taiwan in 1895,they tried to influence all Taiwanese with Japanese culture including religion as well.Religious bodies had to find their own solutions for preserving their authentic belief so as not to become a slave under Japanese malicious influence.Second chapter emphasizes in depth the research of Taiwanese Buddhism under the ’Curfew’period.Buddhism in this unstable political upheaval was facing enormous pressure and a multitude of problems lying ahead such as how to incorporate folklore belief with Buddhism and the severe challenges from Japanese Buddhism that tried to distort the actual development of Buddhism in Taiwan.Christians at that time also threw their relentless blows to attack Buddhism in Taiwan.Religious leaders of Buddhism such as Master Yin Shun,Master Sheng-Yen stood up to defend their belief and even published a booklet entitled ’The Authentic Buddhism’ to further elaborated the actual belief of Buddhism.This chapter describes in detail the accounts of Christians unscrupulously preached inside Buddhist temples and criticized in front of the public that Buddhism was a superstition,and even published articles of debate between Pastor Wu En Pu and both Masters Yin shun and Sheng-Yen.Third chapter analyses the importance of the book ’The Authentic Buddhism’ and through this book,it brought out the true meaning of Buddhism which influenced profoundly majority of the Buddhists at that time.This chapter presents a statistical research on the phrase ’Authentic Buddhism’ as well as 70 random fundamental questions of Buddhism to further discuss and elaborate its importance.Fourth chapter is trying to explain the difference between the real Buddhist belief and heretical Buddhism.This chapter also describes the three stages of the development of Buddhism from its origin till declination in India,namely Primitive Buddhism,Tribal Buddhism and Holistic Buddhism.Buddhist monks’ endless argument about which group holds the authentic belief of Buddhism especially the fights between holistic and minor Buddhism lasts until nowadays.In this chapter,the seven Buddhist organizations in Malaysia published articles to criticize the ’True Buddha Sectarians’ as a heretical group and vice versa.This chapter will give a full detail of the arguments between these two organizations.The conclusion gives a positive value to the ’Authentic Buddhism’ which is inevitable for all the Buddhists around the world including Taiwanese to really uphold the true value and characteristics of what is ’Authentic Buddhism’ to them.