In January of 1912, Rénshān 仁山 went to Nanjing to petition the government to change Jīnshān Monastery 金山寺 in Zhènjiāng 鎮江 into a modern monastic school 僧學堂. In Nánjīng 南京, he met with Tàixū 太虛, who had come to Nánjing to work on setting up an Association for the Advancement of Buddhism 佛教協進會. Tàixū was working out of Pílú Temple 毘盧寺.
Rénshān and Tàixū joined forces and went to Jīnshān together. There, they stayed at Guānyīn Pavilion 觀音閣 (located on Jīnshān 金山), where Rénshān had taken tonsure. A conference was held at the principal monastery on Jīnshan, Jiāngtián Temple 江天寺, and the two announced to an audience of two to three-hundred monks and four hundred lay people that they planned to use the Monastery's resources to run the new school. This met with fierce opposition from the officers of the monastery, including the abbot, Qīngshú 青权 and the guest prefect, Shuāngtíng 霜亭. The reformers won, and the next day they began going over the monastery's accounts and drawing up plans for the new school.
The officers did not back down, and in mid-February they led a group of workmen in storming the new School's headquarters. Rénshān and others were injured. Ultimately, although the former officers were sentenced to prison terms after Rénshān appealed to the authorities, the school did not materialize. Tàixū's reputation as a reformer of Buddhism was established, in large part, by this incident. The results of which were not immediately good for his reputation. Somewhat disgraced, he retreated from the public scene for a number of years after this.
Erik Hammerstrom
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