Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c15.s2.t8: Liang Shuming
Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c15.s2.t8
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Liang Shuming
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Often hailed as the ‘last Confucian’ among the early 20th century Chinese intellectuals or as the ‘Chinese Tagore’ in the compendium of contemporary Asian intellectuals, Liang Shuming was a philosopher, teacher, and political activist. He was committed to Confucianism and advocated native cultural-spiritual rejuvenation for modernity of Chinese society.
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Born on October 18, 1893, Liang Shuming was based in Beijing and belonged to the family of a Qing patriot and metropolitan scholar-official, Liang Ji. Unlike many of his illustrious contemporaries, he had his early education starting not with Confucian classics, but with children’s primer for world history and geography. Trained in Beijing’s newly emerging foreign style schools, he graduated from Xuntian Middle School in 1911, with a deeper involvement in underground political organisation like Tongmeng Hui (Revolutionary Alliance). Yet, several emotional breakdowns in 1912-13 paradoxically shifted him to the study of Yogacara Buddhism and spiritualism. His 1916 article in Eastern Miscellany (Dongfang Zazhi) on comparative studies of Buddhism with western philosophies of Henri Bergeson and Arthur Schopenhauer, greatly impressed Cai Yuanpei, the Chancellor of Peking University. He appointed him in 1917 as the first Professor of Buddhism/Indian philosophy without any consideration for his lack of formal university degree and education in philosophy. After his father Liang Ji’s suicide in despair over the cultural and political downfall of
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Liang Shuming
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China in 1918, Liang Shuming’s commitment to Confucian civilisational discourses on modernity strengthened.
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His most influential work, *The Cultures of East and West and their Philosophies* (*Dongxiwenhua ji qu zhexue*) was published in 1921. He divided the world into three distinguished sections - culture, Western, Chinese and Indian - with each section being governed by its separate philosophical roots and logic. The western culture characterised materialism that sought to conquer environment, nature and other people in order to fulfill material needs. The Chinese culture strove not to conquer, but to harmonise itself with the environment and nature to draw mental satisfaction. The Indian culture stressed that the tension between humans and their environment is ultimately illusory and the road to human happiness lies in spiritual enlightenment, through which this tension is overcome by being completely ignorant. In so far, as each of these three cultures directed itself to satisfy human needs, they served legitimate purpose in different epochs. In the May Fourth era of iconoclasm and the intense debate over nationalism and modernity, Liang Shuming thus sought to establish relevance of the Chinese Confucian culture.
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Convinced that the epoch of western materialism is over, Liang Shuming between 1931 and 1937 actively strove to revive the Confucian culture through the reconstruction of the Chinese countryside – the repository of Confucian values. His Rural Reconstruction Research Institute in Zouping County of Shandong province functioned well and proved to be a role model for the Guomindang Government until the outbreak of Sino Japanese War in 1937. During this period, he devoted his energy to make the Communists and Nationalists forge an alliance for a common cause. He also united small liberal parties to form the Democratic League as the third political force in China. The failure to bring about unity or alliance between the Communists and Nationalists however dejected him to abandon politics in 1946. After the Communist’s victory in 1949, he remained in China. Both a friend and critique of Mao Zedong, he was persecuted for his political views by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. In 1979, he was restored to the mainstream by Deng Xiaoping. In 1980, he was appointed to the national committees for revision of the Chinese Constitution as well to Presidium of the Chinese’s Political Consultative Conference. He however, devoted most of his time in writing and published two books before his death in 1993 at the age of 96. The essence of his ideology, as captured by Guy Alitto, remained till last ‘an eclectic blend of Neo-Confucian idealism and Yogacara Buddhism with elements of European vitalism’.
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(*Kamal Sheel*)