Indonesia Table of Contents  Indonesian Buddhism in the early
1990s was the unstable product of complex accommodations among
religious ideology, Chinese ethnic identification, and political
policy. Traditionally, Chinese Daoism (or Taoism), Confucianism,
(agama Konghucu in Indonesian) and Buddhism, as well as the more
nativist Buddhist Perbuddhi, all had adherents in the ethnic
Chinese community. Following the attempted coup of 1965, any
hint of deviation from the monotheistic tenets of the Pancasila
was regarded as treason, and the founder of Perbuddhi, Bhikku
Ashin Jinarakkhita, proposed that there was a single supreme
deity, Sang Hyang Adi Buddha. He sought confirmation for this
uniquely Indonesian version of Buddhism in ancient Javanese
texts, and even the shape of the Buddhist temple complex at
Borobudur in Jawa Tengah Province. In the years following the
1965 abortive coup, when all citizens were required to register
with a specific religious denomination or be suspected of
communist sympathies, the num