Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c15.s2.t8.2

v2.c15.s2.t8.2

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