Background
Ouyang, Jianwu was born in 1871 in Yihuang, Jiangxi Province, China.
Ouyang, Jianwu was born in 1871 in Yihuang, Jiangxi Province, China.
Studied Song and Ming dynasty Neo-Confucianism, especially Wang Yangming, in his youth and then Buddhism with Yang Wenhui in Nanjing after the turn of the century. He travelled for a short time in Japan.
Taught at the Guangdong Guangxi Advanced Teachers’ School. Head of the Buddhist Scripture Printing Press upon Yang’s death in 1911 and established a Buddhist Research Section. 1922, started the Chinese Academy of Inner Learning, headed a University 1924-1927 to study the Marks of Existence School of Buddhism.
After the outbreak of war with Japan in 1937, led followers to Sichuan, and established a branch of the Chinese Academy of Inner Learning.
Although not an original thinker, Ouyang initiated the modernization of Buddhism in China. His Buddhist studies began with the Marks of Existence and Consciousness Only Schools. The latter, propounding a rationalist and atheistic metaphysics with sophisticated analyses of consciousness, knowledge, the self and external objects, was taken from India by the monk Xuan Cang (596-664). With Ouyang’s revival it proved an attractive basis for the later absorption of modern Western doctrines. Ouyang then turned to the Prajna School and the Nirvana School. Ouyang’s account of the difference between Marks of Existence and Consciousness Only Buddhism led to a split into sects. He influenced Abbot Taixu, Liang Souming and Xiong ShfliLiang Qichao and Tang Yongtong, among others, listened to his lectures.