The Buddhist Monks Master Yinshun（1906–2005）and Master Shengyan （1930–2009）both ordained in China before coming to Taiwan due to the turmoil caused by the Chinese Civil War. Active during roughly the same period, both have had a major impact on contemporary Chinese Buddhism. Despite receiving little formal education during youth and suffering from lifelong poor health, both went on to become highly regarded scholars and prolific writers. Moreover, each got the Doctor of Philosophy and developed his own system of thought which served as the starting point for in-depth research on Chinese Buddhism Their respective intellectual development and writings can be clearly divided into different periods. Indeed, both Yinshun and Shengyan have been likened to Xuanzang, but how did they describe and present themselves? To be sure, much has been written about their views on Buddhism, but little scholarly attention has been given to how they represented themselves in their memoirs. Thus, in this paper I interpret their autobiographies from a literary point of view, an approach which is rather different from that of previous studies of this nature. In this paper I show that, despite differences in academic background, both Yinshun and Shengyan adopted a scholarly approach emphasizing the bodhisattva vows and practice. As it was with such eminent Buddhist figures of the past as Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Kumarajiva, and Xuanzang, these two modern luminaries regarded scholarship as a way of transmitting the Dharma and benefiting others. Thus they happily endured loneliness, illness, and all manner of hardship while engaging in solitary meditation, study, and writing, all the while holding fast to their original intention and vows. Rather than merely studying Buddhism as an academic pursuit cut off from the exigencies of the real world, they dedicated their lives to plumbing the depths of the Buddhadharma as a way of bringing practical spiritual benefits to both themselves and others. Yinshun and Shengyan are today widely esteemed as exemplary scholar-monks who dedicated their lives to the Dharma, yet in writing their autobiographies they each adopted a simple style and modestly portrayed themselves as fairly ordinary monks——a further indication of their high level of attainment in the bodhisattva practice.
