Biography
Taixu was born in Hǎiníng (海寧/海宁) in Zhejiang province. His lay name was Lǚ Pèilín (呂沛林). His parents died when he was still young, and he was raised by his grandparents. At 16 he was ordained into the Linji school of Chan Buddhism in Xiao Jiǔhuá Temple (小九華寺/小九华寺) in Suzhou. Not long after being ordained he was given the Dharma name of Taixu, meaning Great Emptiness. In 1909 he travelled to Nanjing to join the Sutra Carving Society established there by the lay Buddhist Yang Renshan.
As a result of being exposed to the political writings of Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Tan Sitong and Zhang Taiyan, Taixu turned his mind to the reformation of Buddhism. In 1911 while in Guangzhou, he made contact with the revolutionaries plotting to overthrow the Qing dynasty and participated in some secret revolutionary activities. Taixu would later describe the formation of his political thinking during this time in his Autobiography (自傳 zìzhuàn):
My social and political thought was based upon 'Mr. Constitution', the Republican Revolution, Socialism, and Anarchism. As I read works such as Zhang Taiyan's "On Establishing Religion", "On the Five Negatives", and "On Evolution", I came to see Anarchism and Buddhism as close companions, and as a possible advancement from Democratic Socialism.
After the establishment of the new Republic of China, Taixu founded the Association for the Advancement of Buddhism (佛教協進會/佛教协进会 fójiào xiéjìn hùi), which lasted only a short time due to resistance from conservative Buddhists. Unable to convince the Buddhist community of his ideas, and shocked by the outbreak of the First World War and the sufferings in China, Taixu went into seclusion (閉關/闭关 bìguān) on Putuoshan for three years from October 1914.
Until his death Taixu worked toward the revival of Buddhism in China, although because of the economic and political turmoil that China experienced through wars and revolutions, few of his projects were successful. He died on March 12, 1947 at the Jade Buddha Temple (玉佛寺 yùfó sì) in Shanghai. One of his influential disciples was Dongchu 東初 (1907–1977).
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