Zhang Taiyan And The Revival Of Modern Chinese Buddhism

Since the Late Ch’ing Dynasty, China faced challenges both in politic and in culture. Thus, Chinese intellects and thinkers began to seek new resources to surface these challenges, and many of them choose Buddhism as their new tool. Therefore, it led Chinese Buddhism which had decomposed for a long period to a new revival. Zhang Taiyan, who was one of the most influential thinkers in Modern China, was also one of the important people to the revival of Modern Chinese Buddhism. In the past, researchers generally paid attention to Zhang Taiyan’s ideology in Buddhism, or how Zhang Taiyan used Buddhism in revolution. However, few people had thought about what the effect and influence were due to Zhang’s research and application in Buddhism? And what exactly connection was between Zhang Taiyan and the revival of Modern Chinese Buddhism? Therefore, these became the main problems which I discussed in this thesis.This thesis is mainly composed of five chapters as follows:In Chapter One, I focused on the decadence of Chinese Buddhism, the crush of western culture to Chinese tradition culture and Buddhism, and how was the changing process of Zhang Taiyan’s thinking and attitude to Buddhism.In Chapter Two, I mainly discussed the point of Chinese Buddhism’s changing from passive to active, and it’s relation with Zhang Taiyan. Since the Late Ch’ing dynasty, China was facing lots of challenges and dangers, many intellectuals and revolutionists have chosen Buddhism theory to problems, which led to a changing in Chinese Buddhism’s from passive to active, and Zhang Taiyan was one of the most important intellectuals and revolutionists in the process of that change.In Chapter Three, I studied the relation between Zhang Taiyan and the reformation of Modern Chinese Buddhism. Once, there used to be a movement that people sacked temples’properties to build schools In Late Ch’ing Period, which became a disaster to Chinese Buddhists. However, the main reason which led to such a disaster was mainly because of the decay of Buddhism itself. Zhang Taiyan was one of the people who noticed this at the very first, and put forward a serious of propositions to reform Buddhism and temples, which influenced many Buddhists later. So, Zhang was a "forerunner" to the reformation of Modern Chinese Buddhism.In Chapter Four, I focused on some practice Zhang Taiyan did that related to the revival of Modern Chinese Buddhism. Including Zhang Taiyan’s Sanskrit studying, organizations and activities Zhang Taiyan has took part in, and some lectures he has gave about Buddhism thinking and theory.The Last Chapter is a summary of this thesis. I first discussed the quality of Zhang Taiyan’s thinking of Buddhism, which was both referred to philosophic and practical. At last, some more questions were indicated and I hope more studies will be done about this topic.