Indigenously Global: A Brief History of the Buddhist Tzu Chi (Ciji) from Taiwan.

[[abstract]]This paper traces the forty-year development of an indigenous charitable group from a grassroots to an international non-governmental organization (NGO). It addresses issues involved in the making of the globality of an indigenous charitable group. The paper will press for the question of to what extent the example of an indigenously global charity could be comparable to other indigenous charities across culture.The Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation, commonly known as Ciji or Ciji gongdehui (Merit Society), was founded by fewer than forty Taiwanese women in an “out-of-the-way” place on eastern Taiwan in 1966. Forty years later, it became the largest formal charitable organization in Taiwan, claims over 5 million members worldwide, and acts as a United Nations NGO. The development of Tzu Chi demonstrates how the global and the indigenous can be dovetailed: the post-colonial background of the founder, the Venerable Cheng Yen (Zhengyan); the grassroots development of the group’s early history; the transition from its national momentum to transnational overseas development; the emergence of a religious diaspora; and the achievement of its global and cosmopolitan NGO-ness. Is the story of Tzu Chi unique?[[fileno]]2040726030001[[department]]人類