“Humanistic Buddhism” (人間佛教) as a fixed word is created by Taixu the modern Buddhism reformer in the 1930s and then this idea was spread widely by his disciples. Taixu preferred “Life Buddhism”(人生佛教) in his early years though the “Life Buddhism” used as usually as “Humanistic Buddhism” in his books. The general meanings of “Life Buddhism” or “Humanistic Buddhism” are aimed at making the Buddhism and the modern civilization mutual adjustment, in view of the traditional spirits of “disenchantment” of religion of gods and ghosts, make it turned to focus on responsibility of the salvation. Basing on the thought about “Mahayana is not Buddha's teaching” (大乘非佛說) and ideas of “New Buddhism Movement”(新佛教運動), recent scholars in Japan put forward the theory of “Buddha is a human being”(佛陀人間論), in which theory exploration, has high similar characteristic to “Humanistic Buddhism”(人間佛教) started by subsequent Chinese monks such as Master Taixu, Master Yinshun and so on. It was lacking material evidences about whether “Humanistic Buddhism” in China was influenced by thought of Buddhism from Japan or not, however, one fundamental fact could be realized is that, as a pioneer, Master Taixu maybe have some understanding about the theory of “Buddha is a human being” in his early life. Master Taixu preferred to adopt the concept of “Humanistic Buddhism”, which is very likely due to different distinct understanding about “ningen”(人間) in “Buddha is a human being” in Chinese and Japanese.
