Shan Hui

TAIWAN, Keelung

Shan Hui was a Chan monk and artist with an original family name of Jiang and an alias of Changjue. His family was from Yongding, Fujian, but later migrated to Keelung, Taiwan. In 1902, Shan Hui followed Master Shanzhi to Yongquan Temple in Fujian, and eventually renounced under Chan Master Jingfeng. After being fully ordained, he returned to Taiwan, and together with Master Shanzhi and others, he built Lingquan Temple in Keelung.
The main hall of Lingquan Temple was completed in 1908. Shan Hui, who was affliliated as a monk to the Soto Zen school in Japan, became abbot and continued construction, building the memorial hall, front hall, meditation hall, main temple gate, and more. As a result of his visits to various temples in Japan, Lingquan Temple soon developed into a branch of the Soto Zen school. The Buddhist order Shan Hui led became what is today known as the Yuemeishan school or Lingquan Temple school.
Beginning in 1912, Shan Hui invited highly cultivated monastics from China and Japan to Taiwan for Buddhist lectures. This marked the commencement of cooperation between Chinese and Japanese Buddhism during this time. He organized a country-wide 27-day meditation retreat for monastics and devotees in 1914, and in the same year, he was invited to be abbot of Fahua Temple in Tainan where he worked hard to complete renovations.
Shan Hui served as the director of the Taiwan Young Buddhist Association for many years and actively fostered young monastics. In 1917, he founded a Buddhist high school, known as Taibei High School, where he was the principal for 15 years.
After stepping down from abbotship of Lingquan Temple in 1934, Shan Hui traveled in Southeast Asia. Throughout his time in the region, he served as abbot at a number of different temples including Phor Kark See Monastery in Singapore and Kek Lok Si Temple in Penang, Malaysia. After returning to east Asia, he acted as president of the Buddhist Association in Shanghai and was an integral figure in dissolving disputes between the Chinese and Japanese in the Sino-Japanese War. In 1945, he established the Taiwan Buddhist Association.
A couplet written by Shan Hui is kept at Fahua Temple in Tainan, Taiwan. In addition, he authored Interpretation on the Heart Sutra.