Clerics › Religious Figure
Yang Wenhui
Late Qing Buddhist layman from Shidai in Anhui who founded the Jinling Sutra Press in Nanjing in 1866 and led the modern revival of Buddhist learning
In a temple courtyard at dusk, a great bronze bell hangs at the right and incense smoke rises from a bronze urn; monks in orange robes and plainly dressed visitors walk toward a lamplit hall, lotus flowers bloom in a stone basin, and a gold prayer wheel stands at the left.
Also known as Zi Renshan · Layman Yang Renshan
Yang Wenhui, courtesy name Renshan, came from Shidai in Anhui. Converted to Buddhism after reading the Awakening of Faith, he founded the Jinling Sutra Press in Nanjing in 1866 to cut and print scriptures, and its woodblocks survive. He twice went to Europe with the envoys Zeng Jize and Liu Ruifen, and in London he met the Japanese scholar Nanjo Bunyu, through whom he recovered and printed many Buddhist texts long lost in China. In 1908 he opened the Jetavana School for monks and lay students, among them Taixu and Ouyang Jingwu. He died in Nanjing in 1911.
Life and times
Dates 1837 CE–1911 CE