Tánxuán 談玄 (189?/19??-19??)
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Tánxuán 談玄 studied both Shingon 真言 and Tendai 天台 forms of Esotericism in the mid 1930s, and brought thousands of texts related to those schools from Japan to China in 1935.
Tánxuán ordained at a young age. Once, while still a teenager, he was performing a Buddhist repentance ceremony at the home of a layman (which he often did on the instructions of his father). That layman asked him a pointed question about the meaning of bodhi (enlightened wisdom) and after he was unable to answer, Tánxuán began to study the Buddhist scriptures in earnest. Seeing his son's earnest desire to study the scriptures, his father stopped asking him to perform repentance rites. It was at this point that the young monk adopted to the name Tánxuán. He later traveled to Língyǐn Temple 靈隱寺 in Hángzhōu 杭州 to continue his studies.
In the spring of 1925 Tánxuán, along with Lèguān 樂觀 and Xiǎowù 曉悟, received the support of Wáng Yītíng 王一亭 to travel to Ōsaka to study at the Mishū Buddhist Seminary 密宗佛學院, which had recently been established by 玉山 to train Chinese monks gratis in Japanese Esoteric Buddhism 東密. Upon their arrival in Japan, however, the three monks were dismayed to discovered that the Mishū Buddhist Seminary existed in name only. Lèguān and Xiǎowù returned to China without delay, but Tánxuán remained in Japan, studying until 1929 or 1930.
In September of 1932, Tánxuán became researcher at the World Buddhist Studies Center 世界佛學苑.[1]
In 1934, Tánxuán went back to Japan, where he studied both Shingon 真言 and Tendai 天台 forms of Esotericism. He returned to China in 1935, bringing with him more than two thousand volumes of texts on mūdras, Esoteric history, and other items related to Esoteric Buddhism in a number of different languages.[2]