headquarters of the Chinese Buddhist Association in the war
years, 1937 to 1945. During the war, Taixu led a Chinese
Buddhist mission of goodwill to Burma, India, Ceylon, and
Malaya to win support and sympathy for China, and he was
awarded a medal by the Chinese government for his contri-
butions to the war effort. His influence on Nationalist lead-
ers declined after the war, and he died on March 12, 1947.
His writings were published posthumously in thirty-three
volumes.
Since the late nineteenth century, Chinese Buddhism
has been under constant pressure from the government and
from intellectuals. In 1898 a high official proposed that 70
percent of monastic buildings and their income should be
taken over to finance the public school system. Although this
was not put into practice, and although the Buddhists man-
aged at times to put off or soften anti-Buddhist threats, the
idea of using Buddhist property to finance education arose
again in 1928 and 1942. Taixu’s suggestions for reform were
part of the Buddhist reaction to public pressure. As a com-
promise, Taixu suggested in 1942 that 40 percent of monas-
tic income be used for educational and charitable institutions
run by the Buddhists in exchange for government protection
of monastic property, but his suggestion had no effect on ei-
ther side.
Taixu’s attempts to reform and modernize Chinese
Buddhism were to some extent successful. A number of
prominent scholars and religious leaders were trained at the
academies and libraries that he founded, and his lectures and
writings helped create a more positive public attitude toward
Buddhism. But his larger dream of a worldwide Buddhist
movement, and his plan for reorganizing Buddhist institu-
tions throughout China never materialized during his life-
time. His ideas were often viewed by the conservative Bud-
dhist establishment as radical and unacceptable. They
cooperated with him reluctantly in times of crisis but were
always opposed to his ideas on monastic affairs. Yet, viewed
from a historical perspective, his program of reform and
modernization (the establishment of Buddhist academies,
journals, foreign contacts, and so forth) can be seen to have
created new patterns for Chinese Buddhism.
The religious thought of Taixu falls in the mainstream
of Chinese Buddhism. It recognizes that all sentient beings
possess the Buddha nature and are subject to the law of cau-
sation. The operation of cause and conditions is universal
and incessant, and all worldly phenomena are based on that
operation. If one follows the five Buddhist precepts, a happy
life in this world is achievable. This happy life is, however,
not lasting; it is subject to change. One must therefore strive
for a higher wisdom and thus attain nirva ̄n:a. When one real-
izes that there is neither self nor object and that only the
mind is universal and unlimited, one will work for the salva-
tion of all sentient beings so that they too may become Bud-
dhas. Taixu’s contribution is his adoption of a new terminol-
ogy and a modern style of writing, thus tuning the old
philosophy to the new thought in China. He often used
words like revolution, evolution, science, democracy, philosophy,
and freedom, as well as other concepts popular in his time.
Although he may not always have used these terms with a
clear understanding of their modern meaning, by incorporat-
ing them into the context of Buddhism he made the tradi-
tion continue to appeal to young people at the beginning of
the twentieth century.BIBLIOGRAPHY
The most complete and competent account of Taixu is the chro-
nological biography compiled by Yinshun, T’ai-hsü ta-shih
nien-p’u (1950; reprint, Taibei, 1973). Taixu’s autobio-
graphical writings, including T’ai-hsü tsu-chuan (rev. ed.,
1945), can be found in the collection of his writings, T’ai-hsü
ta-shih ch’üan-shu, vols. 29–30 (1953; reprint, Taibei, 1973).
Holmes Welch’s chapter on the monk in his The Buddhist
Revival in China (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), pp. 51–57, is
overly critical. See also Paul E. Callahan’s “T’ai-hsü and the
New Buddhist Movement,” Papers on China 6 (March
1952): 149–188, and the entry on Taixu in the Biographical
Dictionary of Republican China, 1911–1949, edited by How-
ard L. Boorman (New York, 1970). Selections from Taixu’s
writings in English translation can be found in his Lectures
in Buddhism (Paris, 1928) and Chou Hsiang-kuang’s T’ai-
hsü: His Life and Teachings (Allahabad, India, 1957).
New Sources
Fu, C.W.-h. and S. A. Wawrytko. Buddhist Ethics and Modern So-
ciety: An International Symposium. New York, 1991.
Long, Darui. “An Interfaith Dialogue between the Chinese Bud-
dhist Leader Taixu and Christians.” Buddhist Christian
Studies 20 (2000): 167–189.
Pittman, Don A. “The Modern Buddhist Reformer T’ai-hsu on
Christianity.” Buddhist Christian Studies 13 (1993): 71–83.
JAN YÜN-HUA (1987)
Revised BibliographyTALIESIN. The ninth-century Historia Brittonum, usual-
ly attributed to “Nennius,” names Taliesin as one of a famed
group of Welsh poets of the latter half of the sixth century.
The thirteenth-century Book of Taliesin contains a body of
poetry of diverse origins and different dates that the scribe
presumably associated with Taliesin, but modern research
has isolated some twelve poems that are regarded as his au-
thentic work. These are heroic court poems sung to royal pa-
trons and to Urien, Owain, and Gwallawg, kings of the
sixth-century northern British kingdoms of Rheged and
Elmet.
The early medieval Welsh poet was a complex persona,
and Taliesin acquired the status of a vaticinatory poet (per-
haps conflated with the figure of Myrddin/Merlin) and pur-
veyor of esoteric and learned lore, both bardic and Christian.
Many of the poems in the Book of Taliesin reflect this role,
which is given a specific context in the Story of Taliesin
(Hanes Taliesin). Although found in manuscript copies of the
sixteenth century and later, this composite tale is certainly8968 TALIESIN