The Life and Works of the Venerable Elder Yinshun (1906-)
and His Views on Indian Buddhism as Outlined in Indu fojiao sixiangshi
Marcus Bingenheimer
Supervisor: Dr. Max Deeg
Wuerzburg University
The first part of this thesis is an introduction to the life and work of Yinshun. The second part will focus on his views of the development of Indian Buddhist thought as presented in Indu fojiao sixiangshi (1988).
Yinshun became a monk early in life. A student of Taixu, he spend World War II in Sizhuan, and emigrated via Hong Kong to Taiwan in 1952. After a difficult start there, he is now considered the most eminent scholar monk in Taiwan. Yinshun's main contribution lies in the field of scholarship where his considerable output (over 40 books) has made him the authoritative voice of the Chinese Sangha.
The biographical part of this study will try to show Yinshun in the context of his times. As in the case of his teacher Taixu, the attitude of the Chinese Sangha towards Yinshun and his ideas has changed considerably over the decades. I want to ask why and what this means for the development of Chinese Buddhism. I want to find out in what respect Yinshun's views and hermeneutical methods are 'westernized/westernizing' and/or in how far they draw on traditional Chinese Buddhist scholarship.
Since Yinshun's main area of study is Indian Buddhism, I will describe his main approach to the subject as compared with 'western' (including Japanese) scholarship. I was thinking of using the works of Lamotte, Warder and Hirakawa as points of reference to place Yinshun's effort into a larger picture of Buddhist Studies. I am still hesitant if I should use the newly formed concept of "Buddhist theology" (in the sense Jackson & Makransky (2000) use the term), since Yinshun could well be described as a "Buddhist theologian." What would I gain?
Yinshun's work has not yet gained much attention outside the Chinese world, and so far the only two studies I know of that where written on Yinshun in a language other than Chinese were written by overseas Chinese. (Shi Zhiru's short but very helpful study (unpublished MA thesis, University of Michigan) and one much less helpful PhD thesis done at the California Institute of Integral Studies by Tien Po-Yao.) The only major English translation of Yinshun's works is "The Way to Buddhahood" (Wisdom Publications, 1998). Have his more scholarly works escaped the attention of Western scholars because his style is too different to any of those currently employed in 'the West' (however, Yinshun has a small audience in Japan)?
If you know of anybody who is working on Yinshun and might be interested in exchanging views and ideas about him, please contact me. Also, of course, any kind of comment and critique of the whole project is sincerely welcome.
Marcus Bingenheimer
Research Assistant
Chunghwa Institute of Buddhist Studies, Taipei
zeitreich@yahoo.com