Buddhist-Confucian; Confucianism; Scholar-monk; Three Teachings
摘要
This article focuses on a special group of eminent monks, who were Confucian scholars before receiving tonsure. In the long history of interaction between Buddhism and Confucianism, which is mingled with integration and collision, numerous Confucian scholars showed compassion and understanding toward Buddhism but few of them converted to it. Nevertheless, the importance of these rare persons, scholar-monks (ruseng 儒僧) should not be ignored. Instead, this article argues that the role they played in the history should be considered as a good case to analyze the power shift in the field of ideology between Buddhism and Confucianism. For example, the attitude towards these scholar-monks by secular people changed from the Six Dynasties period to the Qing dynasty. The attitude of the public towards them was initially one of respect, which turned to contempt; however, neither of these implies the view towards the monks personally, but instead to the two teachings of Confucianism and Buddhism. Therefore, this article compares the stories of some outstanding figures of scholar-monks, such as Huiyuan 慧遠 (334–416) and Sengfan 僧范 (476–555) in the Six Dynasties period, Zongmi 宗密 (780–841) in the Tang dynasty, Qisong 契嵩 (1007–1072) and Zhiyuan 智圓 (976–1022) in the Song dynasty, Liu Bingzhong 劉秉忠 (1216–1274) in the Yuan dynasty, and Yao Guangxiao 姚廣孝 (1335–1418) in the Ming dynasty, in order to indicate the power shift mentioned above.
