Yang Wenhui was a Chinese

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 lay

Laity

In religious organizations, the laity comprises all people who are not in the clergy. A person who is a member of a religious order who is not ordained legitimate clergy is considered as a member of the laity, even though they are members of a religious order .In the past in Christian cultures, the...

 Buddhist reformer who has been called "The Father of the Modern Buddhist Renaissance". His courtesy name was Rénshān (仁山). He was a native of Shídài (石埭) county (modern Shítái 石台 county) in Anhui

Anhui

Anhui is a province in the People's Republic of China. Located in eastern China across the basins of the Yangtze River and the Huai River, it borders Jiangsu to the east, Zhejiang to the southeast, Jiangxi to the south, Hubei to the southwest, Henan to the northwest, and Shandong for a tiny...

 province.

While he was young he accompanied his father to live in Beijing

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

, but the Taiping rebellion

Taiping Rebellion

The Taiping Rebellion was a widespread civil war in southern China from 1850 to 1864, led by heterodox Christian convert Hong Xiuquan, who, having received visions, maintained that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ, against the ruling Manchu-led Qing Dynasty...

 forced them to flee to the lower Yangtze delta

Yangtze River Delta

The Yangtze River Delta, Yangtze Delta or YRD, also called Yangzi, or Chang Jiang Delta, Rive Chang Delta Tai Lake Region or the Golden Triangle of the Yangtze, generally comprises the triangular-shaped territory of Wu-speaking Shanghai, southern Jiangsu province and northern Zhejiang province of...

. Although he studied the Confucian

Confucianism

Confucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius . Confucianism originated as an "ethical-sociopolitical teaching" during the Spring and Autumn Period, but later developed metaphysical and cosmological elements in the Han...

 classics as a child, in 1862 he became interested in Buddhism

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

 after reading a copy of the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana

Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana

Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna is a text of the Mahāyāna branch of Buddhism.-Origin and History:...

  (大乘起信論 dàchéng qǐxìn lùn). In 1866 he moved to Nanjing

Nanjing

' is the capital of Jiangsu province in China and has a prominent place in Chinese history and culture, having been the capital of China on several occasions...

 to manage architectural engineering projects for the government, where his Buddhist beliefs were strengthened through contact with other lay Buddhists.

It was not long after that he and several friends raised money to establish the Jinling Sutra Publishing House (金凌刻經處 Jīnlíng kèjīng chù), Jinling being an old name for Nanjing. In 1878 he left China to visit England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 and France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, bringing back several scientific instruments which he donated to researchers in China. During another trip to England he met the Japanese Buddhist Nanjo Bunyu

Nanjo Bunyu

Nanjō Bunyū was one of the most important modern Japanese scholars of Buddhism. Nanjo was born to the abbot of Seiunji Temple , part of the Shinshu Ōtani sect of the Higashi Honganji branch of Jodo Shinshu.Nanjō studied Classical Chinese texts and Buddhist doctrine in his youth before being...

 (南条文雄) and started a correspondence with him. With Nanjō's help, Yang was able to import over 300 sutra texts from Japan that had been lost within China. In 1894 he worked with the British missionary Timothy Richard

Timothy Richard

Timothy Richard was a British Baptist missionary to China, who influenced the modernisation of China and the rise of the Chinese Republic....

 (李提摩太) to translate Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana into English.

Yang established the Zhiheng Monastery (祗洹精舍 zhīhéng jīngshè) in 1908 for teaching Buddhism on the site of his publishing house and wrote the textbooks himself. He invited the poet-monk Su Manshu

Su Manshu

Su Manshu was a Chinese writer, poet, painter, revolutionist, and a translator. He was born as Xuanying in 1884 in Yokohama, Japan. He later adopted Su Manshu as a Buddhist name. His father was a Cantonese merchant, and his mother was his father's Japanese maid...

 to teach Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

 and English. Over twenty monks studied there, preparing to spread the Dharma

Dharma

Dharma means Law or Natural Law and is a concept of central importance in Indian philosophy and religion. In the context of Hinduism, it refers to one's personal obligations, calling and duties, and a Hindu's dharma is affected by the person's age, caste, class, occupation, and gender...

. Unfortunately, due to financial trouble the school closed after only two years.

In 1910 he founded the Buddhist Research Society (佛學研究會 fóxúe yánjiù hùi) and served as its head. The lay Buddhist Ouyang Jian (歐陽漸) studied under Yang at this time, and after Yang's death in 1911 Ouyang would reestablish Yang's old publishing house and school as the Chinese Inner Studies College (支那內學院 zhīnà

Shina (word)

are Romanized Japanese transliterations for the Chinese character compound "支那" which is viewed by most Chinese people as an offensive term for China...

 nèi xúeyuàn). Yang Wenhui had many students over his lifetime, including several well-known figures such as Zhang Taiyan, Tan Sitong

Tan Sitong

Tan Sitong , courtesy name Fusheng, pseudonym Zhuangfei , was a well-known Chinese politician, thinker and revolutionist in the late Qing Dynasty who was in support of reform; he was however, finally executed because of the failure of the reformation...

, and Taixu

Taixu

Venerable Master Taixu , 1890-1947, was a Buddhist modernist, activist and thinker who advocated the reform and renewal of Chinese Buddhism.- Biography :...

.

External links

• A Short Record of Yang Renshan (Simplified Chinese)
• Yang Wenhui's Concepts of Compiling a Tripitaka (Traditional Chinese)
• Yang Renshan and the Jinling Sutra Publishing House (Simplified Chinese)
• Entry in Database of Modern Chinese Buddhism (English)