T'ang Yung-t'ung (June 1892-May 1964), leading historian of Chinese Buddhism whose major work was the Han wei liang-chin nan-peicKao fo-chiao shih [history of Buddhism during the Han, Wei, Chin, and Northern and Southern dynasties].

Born in Huaiyuan, Kansu, T'ang Yung-t'ung received a sound classical education, including several years of study with the noted Buddhist scholar Ou-yang Ching-wu (q.v.). He later enrolled at Tsinghua College (later University), from which he was graduated in 1917. From 1918 to 1922 he studied in the United States, returning to China in 1922 to become a professor at Tung-nan University. He taught at Nank'ai University in 1922-23 and at Chungyang University in 1924-30. In 1931 he was honored with an appointment to a professorship of philosophy at Peking University. Despite almost constant political upheaval and the moving of the university to southwest China after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war, he succeeded in writing a monumental history of early Chinese Buddhism which was published in 1938. His field of research was one which had received scant attention from earlier Chinese scholars. T'ang remained on the teaching staff of Peking University until 1947, when he went to the University of California at Berkeley to give several specialized courses in the history and doctrines of Chinese Buddhism. He returned to China in 1948 to become dean of the humanities at Peking University, a post he retained after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. T'ang suffered a stroke in the winter of 1954 which left one side of his body paralyzed. He died at Peking in May 1964.

T'ang Yung-t'ung's first scholarly contribution was an essay, "P'ing chin-jen chih wen-hua yen-chiu" [a critical discussion of research on culture by moderns], which appeared in the Hsüeh-heng, one of the early Chinese journals devoted to comparative studies of Western and Chinese culture, in December 1922. He continued to play the role of interpreter of the West to the East by translating Edwin Wallace's Outlines of the Philosophy of Aristotle. The result of his labors, "Ya-li-shih-to-te che-hsueh takang," appeared in the Hsüeh-heng in 1923. T'ang's next contribution to the Hsüeh-heng, "Fo-chiao shang-tso-pu chiu-hsin-lun lüehshih" [a summary explication of the nine mental evolvents according to the school of the elders], was the first to reflect his interest in Buddhist studies and comparative methodology. In this article, published in 1924, T'ang analyzed certain doctrines according to one of the early Hinayana schools and laid a foundation for later comparative studies of Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhism.

Turning his attention to historical analysis, T'ang Yung-t'ung wrote a series of notes on the most important work dealing with the period of the introduction and adaptation of Indian or Serendian Buddhism to China—the Kao-seng chuan [lives of eminent monks] by the Liang dynasty monk Hui-chiao (479-554). The resulting "Tu-hui-chiao kao-seng chuan chachi" appeared in 1931 in the Shih-hsueh tsa-chih, a periodical published in Nanking by the Chinese Historical Society. In addition to notes on certain sources used by Hui-chiao, T'ang dealt with specific historical problems posed by some of the biographies: "The Date and Place of Fa-hu's (Dharmaraska's) Death"; "Sanghadeva's Abhidharma Studies"; "A Chronology of Kumarajiva" ; "Shih Tao-an and Fot'u-teng"; "The Year of Tao-an's Escape from the Disturbances" ; "A Chronology of Tao-an" ; "A Chronology of Shih Hui-yuan"; "Sengchao's Letter to Liu I-min"; "On Chih T'anti"; "On Fo-t'u-teng"; and "The Wei Emperor T'ai-wu's Suppression of Buddhism." Whereas many earlier scholars had simply cited their sources without making any attempt at critical evaluation, T'ang set himself the task of establishing the historical facts (a difficult problem as Buddhists traditionally were ahistorical) and showing how mistakes had arisen in earlier accounts. His insights into the role of doctrinal bias in shaping the traditional accounts pointed the way for later studies of forged texts by other scholars.

Tang's intensive research on the history and doctrines of the formative period of Chinese Buddhism yielded several important articles in the 1930's. "T'ang t'ai-tsung yü fo-chiao" [emperor T'ang T'ai-tsung and Buddhism] appeared in the Hsüeh-heng in 1931 . Here T'ang studied another important problem in Chinese Buddhist history which had been ignored by almost all traditional Chinese historians, that is, what Westerners would call the churchstate problem. The following year saw the publication of "Chu Tao-sheng yü nieh-p'anhsueh" [Chu Tao-sheng and the studies concerning the Nirvana-sutra] in the Kuo-hsueh chi-fan. T'ang brilliantly demonstrated that such fundamental concepts of Ch'an as tun-wu [sudden enlightenment] had been taught at the end of the fourth century A.D., some 175 years earlier than had been supposed by other scholars. Another important contribution was "Chung-kuo fo-chiao ling-p'ien" [notes on the history of Chinese Buddhism], published in 1937 in the Yenching Journal of Chinese Studies. In this article T'ang posed such basic questions as: "How extensive was the reaction among Chinese intellectuals to the introduction of Buddhism from about 100 A.D. on?" "How much of Indian Buddhism was understood by the Chinese, and what modifications were made by them?" "Where does the influence of Buddhism on later generations assert itself?" These questions and Tang's proposed answers, based on painstaking research, provided his readers with a preview of his magnum opus, a history of Chinese Buddhism from the Han dynasty to the T'ang.

The Han wei liang-chin nan-pei-ch 'ao fo-chiao shih [history of Buddhism during the Han, Wei, Chin, and Northern and Southern dynasties] was published at Shanghai in 1938. Almost onefourth of this 900-page work was devoted to an analysis of the Han dynasty Buddhism. In the first chapter, T'ang sought to separate fact from pious fiction in the various traditional accounts of how and when Buddhism was introduced to China. He then proceeded to a philological analysis of the famous legend that Buddhism was introduced officially under Emperor Ming, concluding that there was indeed a grain of truth in the tradition. This analysis was followed by an investigation of the textual history of the "first sutra" translated into Chinese, the Ssu-shih-erh chang ching. T'ang demonstrated that the so-called Mahayanistic passages, frequently cited by such scholars as Liang Ch'i-ch'ao (q.v.) to prove the entire work a forgery, were added to the original text by later Buddhists. He concluded that the original form of this "sutra" was purely Hinayanistic in inspiration and that in this form it was very old indeed, for it was quoted by an official in a memorial to the throne dated 166 A.D.

Among the other important problems which T'ang discussed in his history were the relationship between Buddhism and Taoism; the sources of Buddho-Taoist metaphysics; the beginnings of various indigenous theories particularly as related to the Prajna [gnosis] studies of the period of Tao-an (312-385); and the relation of Buddhism to the state in the Northern and Southern dynasties. He also treated such subjects as the revival of gnostic studies, the San-lun, and the Cti'eng-shih-lun under the Southern dynasties and the characteristics of the lu, Ch'an, and Ching-t'u studies pursued during the Northern dynasties.

In many ways, the Han wei Hang-chin nanpei-ch'ao fo-chiao shih was a source book for the period it covered. All variant accounts were carefully noted, and controversial statements were documented, usually by title and chapter references to primary sources. The work was not without its limitations: T'ang did not deal with the economic aspects of Buddhism; very little use was made of foreign scholarly works, particularly Indological and Sanskrit studies; and there was no index. Nevertheless, T'ang Yung-t'ung's monumental history was and is essential to anyone studying early Chinese Buddhism, and T'ang's contributions to Chinese Buddhist historical studies easily made him the greatest Chinese scholar of his day in this difficult field.