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Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c15.s2.t9: Lü Cheng

Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c15.s2.t9

Language
English

Lü Cheng

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Lü Cheng (February 22, 1896 - July 8, 1989) was a Chinese Buddhist scholar and Lay Buddhist. His former name was Lv Wei, and his style name was Qiu Yi (fourth tone) and Qiu Yi (first tone). He was born in Danyang County, Jiangsu Province. He was one of the founders of the Chinese Inner Studies Institute (later called China Inner Studies Institute).

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He was educated in a family school since childhood and became interested in Buddhism and theory of fine arts under the influence of his eldest brother Lv Fengzi. In 1909, he studied in Zhenjiang County Middle School and was admitted to Changzhou Higher Industrial School to study agricultural science after graduation. Later, he was admitted to the Department of Economy of Nanjing University, the Republic of China but dropped out in 1913 when the university closed. In 1914, he joined the research division of Jinling Scriptural Press. In 1915, he studied aesthetics abroad in Japan, but returned to China because of his fight against Japanese invasion into

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*Lü Cheng*

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China. He was invited to serve as the academic dean of Shanghai Fine Arts School in 1916 after he came back to China. In 1918, he went to Nanjing Jinling Scriptural Press to assist the establishment of Chinese Inner Studies Institute at the invitation of Ouyang Jingwu. In 1922, the Chinese Inner Studies Institute was founded, and Lü Cheng took the post of Academic Director. In 1925, he assisted Ouyang Jingwu to establish the ‘Faxiang undergraduate programme’ in the institute and taught courses including history of Indian Buddhism. In 1937, due to the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, he escorted mass data to Sichuan and established the Chinese Inner Studies Institute Sichuan Branch in Jiangjin (under the jurisdiction of Chongqing today). He took the post of President after Ouyang Jingwu died in 1943 till the institute closed in 1952. According to Ouyang Jingwu’s Institute Annotation•Buddhism, the programmes of the institute were composed of five subjects namely Abhidharma, Prajna, Yoga, Nirvana and commandments that are known as ‘the five Buddhist subjects’. As such, the programmes established by the institute had included all contents of Indian Buddhism which represents an innovation in the teaching history of Chinese modern Buddhism. In 1953, the Buddhist Association of China was founded in Beijing and he was elected as an executive member. In 1956, he became a member of the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences and also a concurrent researcher of the Institute of Philosophy Studies. In 1961, he opened a 5-year Buddhist class in Nanjing as entrusted by the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences to teach Chinese Buddhism and Indian Buddhism courses there.

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Lü Cheng left numerous works. Apart from aesthetic monographs like *History of Western Fine Arts* (1922), *Introduction to Aesthetics* (1923), *Ideological Trend of Modern Aesthetics* (1931) and *Chromatology Outline* (1933), he also had many writings on Buddhism, including *Summary of Declaration* (1923), *Outline of Hetuvidya* (1926), *Original Theory of Tibetan Buddhism* (1933), *Summary of the Origin and Development of Chinese Buddhism* (1979), *Summary of the Origin and Development of Indian Buddhism* (1979) and *Explanation of Nyayapravewa* (1983). He also took part in revising *A New Catalogue of the Chinese Language Tripitaka* and the revised edition was published in 1980. In 1991, Qi Lu Press published the *Selected Works on Buddhism by Lü Cheng* (five volumes altogether). These works have introduced and discussed Indian Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism and the exchanges and relations between the two. Taking *Summary of the Origin and Development of Indian Buddhism* as an example, it only has more than 200 pages, but it draws the outline of the emergence, development and fall of Indian Buddhism.

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He knew many languages including English, Japanese, Sanskrit, Pali and Tibetan. He pursued his studies in Indian Buddhism, Southern Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism, and also in the collation of Sanskrit and Tibetan Buddhist *sutras* and the philology-like edition and catalogue. In terms of the argumentation of Buddhism, one of his greatest findings was that he fully demonstrated the fundamental differences between Indian Buddhism and Chinese Buddhism from the perspective of nature of mind, the core issue of Buddhism. He believed that the former stands for the quiet nature of mind that is the inner nirvana of our self nature, while the latter stands for awareness of nature of mind that is Buddhi of self nature. He argued that by only using ‘quiet nature’ to explain the quiet nature of mind is Indian Buddhism. This finding has provided a basis for determining the authenticity of some sutras. On the basis of textual research, he created the ‘criticism method based on evidences’ for studying Buddhist thoughts and authenticity and applied it to studying the origin of The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana Doctrine, which achieved important results. In terms of the collation of Buddhism sutras, he devoted himself to the edition of Zang Yao between 1928 and 1937, and the book includes over 400 volumes. During his editing, he found that the 85-98 volumes of *Yogacara-Bhumi Sastra* was the order of arrangement and interpretation of *Samyuktagama Sutra* and so he wrote *Modification for Samyuktagama Sutra* that provided a strong evidence for studying the origin of Yogacara and the relations of the three vehicles of Buddhism, namely Sravakayana, Prateka-Buddhayana and Bodhisattvayana.

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(Zhang Ran)

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