Yicheng (; 2 February 1927 – 21 December 2017) was a

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

Buddhist monk, Chan master and

religious leader Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...

. Yicheng was best known as Venerable Master of the

Buddhist Association of China The Buddhist Association of China (BCA, zh, 中国佛教协会) is the official government supervisory organ of Buddhism in the People's Republic of China. The association has been overseen by the United Front Work Department (UFWD) of the Centra ...

Early life

Yicheng was born Zhou Yunsheng () into a family of farming background in

Wangcheng County Wangcheng District () is one of six urban districts of the prefecture-level city of Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province, China. It is the largest district of Changsha by area. The district is bordered to the north by Miluo City and Xiangyin C ...

Changsha Changsha is the capital of Hunan, China. It is the 15th most populous city in China with a population of 10,513,100, the Central China#Cities with urban area over one million in population, third-most populous city in Central China, and the ...

Hunan Hunan is an inland Provinces of China, province in Central China. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the Administrative divisions of China, province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi to the east, Gu ...

, during the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

. He studied rockwork and architecture under his father when he was ten years old.

Religious life

At age 15, he paid a religious homage to Wushan Temple () and wrote a

Gatha ''Gāthā'' is a Sanskrit term for 'song' or 'verse', especially referring to any poetic metre which is used in legends or folklores, and is not part of the Vedas but peculiar to either Epic Sanskrit or to Prakrit. The word is originally derived ...

when he stood in front of the statue of

Gautama Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist lege ...

. In June 1949, Yicheng took refuge in the

Three Jewels In Buddhism, refuge or taking refuge refers to a religious practice which often includes a prayer or recitation performed at the beginning of the day or of a practice session. Its object is typically the Three Jewels (also known as the Triple ...

under master Mingxin () in Xixin Chan Temple, and received complete ordination under

Xuyun Xuyun or Hsu Yun (; 5 September 1840? – 13 October 1959) was a renowned Chinese Chan Buddhist master and an influential Buddhist teacher of the 19th and 20th centuries. Early life Xuyun was purportedly born on 5 September 1840 in Fujian, Qing ...

in the winter of 1956, as the 10th generation of the

Guiyang school The Guiyang school (, also read Weiyang School) is one of the schools of Chan Buddhism. History The Guiyang school was the first established house of the Five Houses of Chán. Guiyang is named after master Guishan Lingyou (771–854) and his di ...

and the 45th generation of the

Linji school The Línjì school () is a school of Chan Buddhism named after Linji Yixuan (d. 866). It took prominence in Song dynasty, Song China (960–1279), spread to Japan as the Rinzai school and influenced the nine mountain schools of Korean Seon. Hi ...

, in

Nanhua Temple Nanhua Temple () is a Buddhist monastery of the Chan Buddhism, one of Five Great Schools of Buddhism where Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch of Chan Buddhism, once lived and taught. It is located in the town of Maba (), Qujiang District, southeast ...

Shaoguan Shaoguan is a prefecture-level city in northern Guangdong Province ( Yuebei), South China, bordering Hunan to the northwest and Jiangxi to the northeast. It is home to the mummified remains of the sixth Zen Buddhist patriarch Huineng. Its built-u ...

south China South China ( zh, s=, p=Huá'nán, j=jyut6 naam4) is a geographical and cultural region that covers the southernmost part of China. Its precise meaning varies with context. A notable feature of South China in comparison to the rest of China is ...

Guangdong ) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...

province. In 1956, he entered the Research Institute of Buddhist Studies, which was founded by Hsu Yun and where Haideng () taught. In 1966, the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...

was launched by

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; traditionally Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Mao Tse-tung. (26December 18939September 1976) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and political theorist who founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in ...

, he was transferred to a reclamation farm in Yunjushan as a farmer, until the end of 1978. According to the national policy of free religious belief, he regained his identity as a monk. In the Spring of 1979, he resided in Zhenru Chan Temple, where he served as its abbot since 1985. In 1986, Yicheng became the president of the Buddhist Association of Yongxiu County and the president of the Buddhist Association of Jiangxi. In September 2002, he was elected Venerable Master of the

, a position he held for almost eight years. In September 2003, he served as abbot of Fayuan Temple. Yicheng won the

Confucius Peace Prize The Confucius Peace Prize () was a Chinese alternative to the Nobel Peace Prize established in 2010 by the Association of Chinese Indigenous Arts in the People's Republic of China (PRC). The prize was created in response to a proposal by business ...

in 2013. Yicheng died in Zhenru Chan Temple,

Jiangxi ; Gan: ) , translit_lang1_type2 = , translit_lang1_info2 = , translit_lang1_type3 = , translit_lang1_info3 = , image_map = Jiangxi in China (+all claims hatched).svg , mapsize = 275px , map_caption = Location ...

, on December 21, 2017.

Works

* * * *

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yicheng 1927 births 2017 deaths Chinese Buddhists 20th-century Chinese people 20th-century Buddhists Rinzai Buddhists Writers from Changsha Chinese Buddhist monks 20th-century Buddhist monks 20th-century Chinese writers Chinese spiritual writers Religious leaders in China