Tianning xuejie tang 天寧學戒堂

Tiānníng Vinaya Hall: Tiānníng xuéjiè táng 天寧學戒堂

This was one of the largest Buddhist seminaries 佛學院 in southern China, with an average annual enrollment of 200 students.

• 1920 - 1949
• Location(s): Tiānníng Temple 天寧寺, Chángzhōu 常州

This seminary was founded in 1920 after the abbot of Tiānníng Temple saw that the 1,500 participants at the ordination that year were woefully lacking in basic monastic education. A small school for lay children that had been founded two decades before was moved, and a school for the study of the Vinaya 律宗 was created. It was modeled after the ones held at Lóngchāng Temple 隆昌寺.

In 1931, the incoming abbot, following what had become the custom among China's seminaries, changed the name of the seminary to the Tiānníng Buddhist Seminary 天寧佛學院. The curriculum was modernized, and Déyī 得一 became headmaster and lecturer in Consciousness-Only 唯識. Modernization continued when Mǐnzhì 敏智 replaced the retiring Déyī in 1938. English and other nontraditional subjects were added.

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'Notable Students

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Notes

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References:

• Shì Dōngchū 釋東初. Zhōngguó Fójiào jìndài shǐ 中國佛教近代史 (A History of Early Contemporary Chinese Buddhism), in Dōngchū lǎorén quánjí 東初老人全集 (Complete Collection of Old Man Dongchu), vols. 1-2. Taipei: Dongchu, 1974 P. 1.214.
• Welch, Holmes. The Buddhist Revival in China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968. Pp. 114-116.