Interviews with Scholars of the Ming: Questions for Professor Chün-Fang Yü

Abstract

It is easy to answerwhy I decided to studyBuddhismof theMingperiod.Mydissertation was on the Ming Buddhist monk, Yunqi Zhuhong 雲棲祩宏 (1535–1615). This topic was suggested by my dissertation advisor, Wm. Theodore de Bary. During the decade when I was a graduate student at Columbia (1961–71), most of my cohorts wrote dissertations on Ming Neo-Confucians. Although I took several courses with de Bary and Wing-tsit Chan, I was primarily interested in Buddhism. But Buddhism after Tang was an unexplored field in those days. It was rarely mentioned in the courses I took on Chinese Buddhism or the books I read. I did not know anything about Ming Buddhism and would not have chosen it as the topic of my dissertation. For this reason, I have always been grateful to Professor de Bary for pointing me in this direction. My interest in Buddhism and religion in general did not begin at Columbia. Rather, it began long before I came to America as a graduate student. Both my family background and my undergraduate education played important roles. My maternal grandmother was a pious Buddhist and a devotee of Guanyin. She lived with us until her death while I was in college. She was the one who first introduced me to vegetarianism, beliefs of karma and rebirth, daily chanting of theGreat Compassion Dharani, and the legend of Princess Miaoshan. I was among the first graduating class (1959) of Tunghai University in Taiwan. Although I majored in English literature, I took all the courses offered by Xu Fuguan徐復觀 (1903–82) and Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 (1909–95), two leading scholars of Chinese philosophy and intellectual history. I was particularly impressed by the thought of Laozi, Zhuangzi, and the thinkers of the Dark Learning. In my senior year at Tunghai, I applied to Smith College and Mount Holyoke College for admission to further study English literature. I was fortunate to be admitted to both colleges with full scholarships. I chose Smith because Miss Anne Cochran, the Chair of the English Department and my teacher at Tunghai, graduated from Smith. My ability to read critically and write research papers in English improved while at Smith. A course on “American Transcendentalism” about Emerson, Thoreau, and other thinkers made me recall the classes I took on Laozi. I applied to the PhD program in Comparative Literature at Yale and UC Berkeley after I received the MA. I was admitted to both. However, before I could make the decision, a chance to work as a TA for a summer session course of intensive Ming Studies, 83, 60–66, May 2021