Yang Wenhui (traditional Chinese:楊文會;simplified Chinese:杨文会;pinyin:Yáng Wénhùi;Wade–Giles:Yang Wenhui; 1837-1911) was a Chineselay Buddhist reformer who has been called "The Father of the Modern Buddhist Renaissance". Hiscourtesy name was Rénshān (仁山) and he is also thus known as Yáng Rénshān. He was a native of Shídài (石埭) county (modern Shítái 石台 county) inAnhui province.
While he was young he accompanied his father to live inBeijing, but theTaiping rebellion forced them to flee to the lowerYangtze delta. Although he studied theConfucian classics as a child, in 1862 he became interested inBuddhism after reading a copy of theAwakening of Faith in the Mahayana (大乘起信論dàchéng qǐxìn lùn). In 1866 he moved toNanjing to manage architectural engineering projects for the government, where his Buddhist beliefs were strengthened through contact with other lay Buddhists.
It was not long after that he and several friends raised money to establish theJinling Sutra Publishing House (金凌刻經處Jīnlíng kèjīng chù),Jinling being an old name for Nanjing. In 1878 he left China to visitEngland andFrance, bringing back several scientific instruments which he donated to researchers in China. During another trip to England he met theJapanese BuddhistNanjo Bunyu (南条文雄) and started a correspondence with him. With Nanjō's help, Yang was able to import over 300 sutra texts from Japan that had been lost within China. In 1894 he worked with the British missionaryTimothy Richard (李提摩太) to translateAwakening of Faith in the Mahayana into English.[1][2]
Yang established the Jetavana Hermitage (祗洹精舍zhīhuan jīngshè) in 1908 for teaching Buddhism on the site of his publishing house and wrote the textbooks himself. He invited the poet-monkSu Manshu to teachSanskrit and English. Over twenty monks studied there, preparing to spread theDharma. Unfortunately, due to financial trouble the school closed after only two years.
In 1910 he founded the Buddhist Research Society (佛學研究會fóxúe yánjiù hùi) and served as its head. The lay BuddhistOuyang Jian (歐陽漸) studied under Yang at this time, and after Yang's death in 1911 Ouyang would reestablish Yang's old publishing house and school as theChinese Inner Studies College (支那內學院zhīnà nèi xúeyuàn). Yang Wenhui had many students over his lifetime, including several well-known figures such asZhang Taiyan,Tan Sitong, andTaixu.
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