Zhang Benxing

Zhang Benxing was born in Beijing in 1923. He entered the monastic life at Guangji Hermitage in Beijing in 1935 and from sixteen studied at Zhihua Temple under its abbot Puyuan, becoming a twenty-sixth-generation musician monk of the temple's Jing music tradition, skilled on the sheng, guan, dizi and yunluo and in Buddhist chant. He returned to lay life in 1951 and worked until retiring in 1984. Invited back to the temple afterwards, he taught the twenty-seventh generation by ear, worked through the old gongche scores and restored four lost pieces. He toured Europe and Asia with the ensemble and recorded the album Jing Music of Zhihua Temple, Beijing. Named a national representative transmitter of intangible heritage, he died in 2009.