Xú Wèirú 徐蔚如 (1878-1937)
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Xú Wèirú 徐蔚如 (1878-1937) ran two major Buddhist presses in Běijīng and Tiānjīn in the 1920s and 1930s. His presses and his own lectures and scholarship focused on Huáyán 華嚴 materials.
Xú received a classical education, learning to read from his mother, from whom he also learned to have faith in Buddhism. At 21, he scored at the top of the exams and became a functionary (部郎) at the capital. There he taught and held a succession of posts. After the revolution of 1911, he moved to Shànghǎi 上海. He served as one of the first representative from Zhèjiāng in the new government and he also edited the Zhejiang Daily News 浙江日報. When Yuán Shìkǎi 袁世凱 took over the government the following year, Xú left the government and spent his time in reciting the Buddha's name 念佛 and studying Buddhist scripture. During this time he also visited Dìxián 諦閑 at Guānzōng Temple 觀宗寺. Xú paid for printing of 西齋淨土詩 at Yáng Wénhuì’s 楊文會 Jīnlíng Scriptural Press 金陵刻經處, and published another book of his own as well.
In 1914, Xú went back to the capital and worked with Jiǎng Wéiqiáo 蔣維喬 in the ministry of education. They talked about Buddhism often, and Xú studied Consciousness-Only with Zhāng Kèchéng 張克誠. From March to the fall of 1918, Xú helped finance Dìxián’s northern lecture tour, in which the monk focused mainly on the Sūtra of Perfect Awakening 圓覺經. During this tour, Xú took the five precepts under Dìxián. Also in 1918, Xú donated a significant amount of money to Buddhist activities aimed at ameliorating the effects of a disastrous drought that had hit northern China.
In 1918, Xú and several of his friends started the Bějīing Scriptural Press 北京刻經處, but after those friends left for Shànghǎi, he became the sole manager. The following year he started the Tiānjīn Scriptural Press 天津刻經處. From 1920 to 1937, these two presses published about 2,000 volumes of Buddhist material. Throughout the 1920s, they printed a number of central texts related to Huáyán 華嚴, many of which had been lost or out of circulation.
In the last years of his life Xú lectured on the Huáyán Sūtra 華嚴經 in Tiānjīn. He also established charities to aid the people displaced by the Second Sino-Japanese War. He apparently worked himself to death, dying in 1937.