Lǐ Jīngwéi 李經緯 (18?? - 19??)
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Lǐ Jīngwéi 李經緯 (18?? - 19??) was a co-founder and permanent board member of Shànghǎi Buddhist Books 上海佛學書局, as well as a lay Buddhist and an author.
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Few details of Lǐ's biography are known, but some information is provided by an article he wrote entitled "Xuéfó zìjì 學佛自記" (A personal account of my Buddhist studies). According to this article, he first turned toward Buddhist matters as a result of witnessing the slaughter of an animal for the first time, after which he could not bring himself to eat meat. When Lǐ was in his teens his father passed away, and his family had somebody chant the Amida Sutra 阿彌陀經. Lǐ was struck by the message of the sūtra and thought over it, as well as issues of death, rebirth and karma, for some time. In the early years of the Republic (1912) he began to read the Shànghǎi periodical Língxué zázhì 靈學雜誌 (Numinous Studies Magazine) but could not resolve his doubts; later he subscribed to Hǎicháoyīn 海潮音 and Juéshè cóngshū 覺社叢書. Lǐ ascribed the roots of his study of Buddhism to reading these periodicals, as well as the Buddhist books published by the Medical Press 醫學書局 founded by Dīng Fúbǎo 丁福保. In time he took refuge under Yìnguāng 印光, and took the Dharma name Zhèngxìng 證性.
In 1922, at the urging of Zhū Shísēng 朱石僧, Lǐ became involved in the founding of the World Buddhist Lay Association 世界佛教居士林.[2] He worked with Zhū to develop the association as well as the association's headquarters, which was completed in 1926. Lǐ also corrected the text of the association's publications, and edited works by Xiǎnyīn 顯陰, tasks that helped in his own studies.
He was a co-editor of the periodical Fóxué bànyuè kān 佛學半月刊 (Buddhism Semimonthly), along with Fàn Gǔnóng 范古農 and Sūn Zhìwèi 孫志衛. In 1936 he became involved in the movement to establish a public Buddhist cemetery in Shànghǎi.[3]
