Hsiung Shih-li (1885-), philosopher. As expressed in his most important work, Hsin weishih lun [new doctrine of consciousness only], Hsiung's system combined elements of the I-ching, the Lu-Wang school of Neo-Confucianism, and the wei-shih school of Mahayana Buddhism.

A native of Huangkang, Hupeh, Hsiung Shih-li was the third in a family of six boys. Only he and his eldest brother received any education. Apparently, their mother died when they were small children. Their father, Hsiung Ch'i-hsiang, was a poverty-stricken scholar who adhered to the Ch'eng-Chu school of Xeo-Confucianism. As a boy, Hsiung Shih-li herded cattle for his neighbors. When he was ten, his father, who was ill with a lung ailment, forced himself to take on students so that Hsiung could learn to read and write. Endowed with an unusually good memory, the boy learned to recite the San-tzu-chirig [threecharacter classic] in one day. Later, he studied the Confucian classics under his father's guidance. Hsiung Ch'i-hsiang died about 1896. On his deathbed, he told Hsiung Shih-li that fate had terminated the boy's schooling and that, since the boy was w^eak and sickly, it would be best for him to become a tailor. Hsiung Shih-li swore to his father that he would continue his education despite all obstacles. His brother Hsiung Chung-fu, Who had attended school until he was 15, often brought along books to read While Working in the fields, and Hsiung Shih-li followed his example. Hsiung Shih-li's formal education was limited to a few months of study with a country teacher named Ho. Hsiung read books on science and other modern subjects which he borrowed from a chü-jen scholar in a neighboring district. He also read essays and memorials written by contemporary reformers and the works of Wang"Fu-chih (ECCP, H, 817-19) and Ku Yen-wu (ECCP, I, 421-26), whose patriotic sentiments made their writings popular in the decades immediately preceding the overthrow of the Manchus.

In 1902, when he was 18, Hsiung Shih-li and two other young men from his district in Hupeh, Wang Han and Ho Tzu-hsin, went to Wuchang, the provincial capital, in search of political adventure. Wang and Ho joined an anti- Manchu revolutionary society called the K'ohsueh pu-hsi [science study club], and Hsiung enlisted as a private in the army. In 1904 Wang Han committed suicide in Changte, Honan, after failing in an attempt to assassinate the vice minister of finance, T'ieh-liang (ECCP, II, 952). That year, Hsiung Shih-li and Ho Tzu-hsin joined another revolutionary society. Its members met in the newspaper reading room of the Wuchang Sheng-kung-hui [Episcopal church]. Hsiung was admitted to the Army Special School. In 1906 he helped organize a military study group as a cover for anti-Manchu activities. His revolutionary agitation in the army soon came to the notice of Chang Piao, the commanding general of the garrison force, and he fled Wuchang. On returning to his native village, he found that his brothers were living in dire poverty. When they learned that the Nanchang-Kiukiang railway in Kiangsi was about to be built and that virgin land was available in Tean, a district lying between the two terminal cities, the brothers decided to try their luck as agricultural settlers.

After the 1911 rev^olution broke out, Huangkang was seized by the republican army. Hsiung Shih-li became a staff officer in the local military government. But when Yuan Shih-k'ai became provisional president of the new republic in 1912 and began to persecute Kuomintang members in Hupeh, Hsiung temporarily withdrew from politics. After Yuan's death and during the ensuing struggle for power between the Peking government of Tuan Ch'i-jui (q.v.) and the Canton government of Sun Yat-sen, Hsiung joined the southern forces and participated in the Kwangsi military expedition against Hunan in 1917-18. He then went to live in Canton and resolved to devote himself to an academic life. About this time, his eldest brother and his two youngest brothers died in succession in bleak poverty. Hsiung sought consolation in Buddhism, studying for more than a year under Ou-yang Ching-wu (q.v.), who was the organizer of the China Buddhist Association and the founder of the China Institute of Inner Learning at Nanking. He studied the rationalistic wei-shih, or "consciousness-only," school of Mahayana Buddhism. However, he soon became dissatisfied with Buddhist thought and began to construct his own philosophical system. In 1922 Hsiung Shih-li accepted an offer to teach at National Peking University. He lectured on his philosophy of "new consciousness-only" and became a close friend of Liang Shu-ming (q.v.) and Lin Tsai-p'ing. In the early 1930's Hsiung became ill. He convalesced at Hangchow and returned to Peking University in 1935.

In the spring of 1938, after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war, Hsiung made his way to Pishan, Szechwan. In the summer of 1939 he accepted an offer to lecture at the Fu-hsing Academy at Loshan. Some of his manuscripts were destroyed and he was wounded during an air raid there. Hsiung's stay at the academy was cut short by illness, and he returned to Pishan in the autumn of 1939. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Peip'ei, where he lived at the Mien-jen Academy, founded by his friend Liang Shu-ming.

In 1944 Hsiung Shih-li obtained the support of Chü Cheng, T'ao Hsi-sheng (qq.v.), and T'ao Chun in organizing the Research Institute for Chinese Philosophy at Peip'ei, with Chü as chairman of the board of trustees and Hsiung as director. The building was donated by Lu Tzu-ying, the mayor of Peip'ei. The only student was Chü Cheng's son Chü Hao-jan, and Hsiung soon completed his Tu-chitig shih-yao [essence of the classics]. In 1945 he lectured for a brief period at a school maintained by the Yellow Sea Chemical Industry Research Association. He then returned to Hupeh. In 1948 he taught at the National Chekiang University for a semester. He moved to Canton in the spring of 1949, but returned to Hupeh at the end of the year. The Central People's Government apparently reappointed him to Peking University in 1950. In 1956 Hsiung published a two-volume study of Confucianism entitled Yuan-ju [on Confucianism] dealing with the Confucian concepts of "kingliness without and sageness within." Hsiung's major work, Hsin wei-shih lun [the new theory of consciousness-only] , was written in classical Chinese in 1923. After many revisions, it was privately published in October 1932. Beginning in the spring of 1938, with the assistance of Ch'ien Hsueh-hsi and Han Yü-wen, Hsiung rewrote it in the vernacular and published it in three volumes (1940, 1941, and 1944). The central thesis of Hsiung's system is the perpetual transformation of reality which he describes as the "closing" and "opening" of the "original substance." In its closing aspect, the original substance tends to integrate, the result of which may temporarily be called mind. This mind itself is one part of the "original mind," which in its various aspects is mind, will, and consciousness. Elements of the I-ching, the Lu-Wang school of Neo-Confucianism (so named because of the dominant influence of the writings of Lu Hsiang-shan, 1139-1193, and Wang Yangming, 1472-1529), and the "consciousnessonly" school of Mahayana Buddhist thought are synthesized in Hsiung's work.

Extracts from Hsiung Shih-li's letters, lectures, and conversations were collected by students and friends and published in four volumes between 1935 and 1947. Entitled Shih-li yü-yao [the essence of Hsiung Shih-li], the work contains comments by the author on a variety of topics, mostly philosophical but also historical, political, and personal. A supplement was published in 1949. Hsiung's other publications included P'o p^o wei-shih-lun [refutation of consciousness-only], Fo-chia ming hsiang t'ung-shih [comprehensive explication of the Buddhist theory ofphenomena] , and Yin-ming ta-shu shan-ju [notes on higher Buddhist logic]. Hsiung Shih-li's philosophy reflects the influence of two important intellectual trends in modern China prior to 1949: Buddhist idealism and the revival and reinterpretation of Neo- Confucianism. Even under the new Communist orthodoxy, Hsiung refused to alter his philosophy. His important study of Confucianism published in 1956 did not pay even lip service to Marxism-Leninism.