YINSHUN'S RECOVERY OF SHIZHU PIPOSHA LUN A MADHYAMAKA-BASED PURE LAND PRACTICE IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY TAIWAN

Yinshun (1906-2005) is regarded as one of the eminent monks of twentieth-century Chinese Buddhism. In the mission of reinventing Chinese Buddhism Yinshun engaged particularly in the revival and restatement of Madhyamaka. His interpretation of Ngrjuna's texts, the reassessment of the links between pre-Mahyna Buddhism and the Prajnpramit tradition, and the critical analysis of the Chinese San-lun became the core of the new Mahyna that he planned for the twentieth-century China. Yinshun also adopted Madhyamaka criteria to reconsider the Mahyna schools that were popular in China, and theorized a Madhyamaka-framed Pure Land based on his reading of the Shizhu piposha lun [T26 n1521]. This article discusses Yinshun's views on the Easy Path (yixing dao) and Difficult Path (nanxing dao) in the Pure Land practice, and contextualizes Yinshun's interpretation within the past history of the Chinese Pure Land School, as well as within the new debates on Pure Land that emerged in twentieth-century China.