Cihang

CHINA, Fujian, Sanming

Born in Jianning county of Sanming, Cihang’s original name was Ai Yancai and he was also known as Jirong. He was a monk who renounced under monk Zizong at Qingyun Temple in Fujian at the age of 17. In the following year, he was fully ordained at Nengren Temple in Jiangxi. He is known to have studied the Buddhist canons for six years. An advocate of the arts, his calligraphic work Letter to Linggen exhibited compelling strokes.
At the age of 33, he became the abbot of Yingjiang Temple in Anhui. He then traveled for five years to various countries such as Hong Kong and Burma to give Dharma talks. Later, Cihang joined the Buddhist Association of China and promoted the doctrine of Mahayana Buddhism throughout Southeast Asia. He stayed in Singapore and Malaysia for more than ten years where he established Buddhist schools as well as several Buddhist societies.
In the mid-1900s, Cihang had a tremendous impact on the development of Buddhism in Taiwan. In 1948, he helped to establish and became the president of the Taiwan Buddhist College at Yuan Kuang Monastery. He also established the Mi’le Neiyuan, otherwise known as the Maitreya Inner Hall, inside Jingxiu Temple at Xiufengshan in Xizhi, New Taipei City, where he conducted lectures on various Mahayana sutras and commentaries. The Maitreya Inner Hall later became the main Buddhist center of Taiwan.
In 1954, when he passed away, he looked remarkably the same as when he had entered into samadhi as an old monk. His body was buried in the funerary pagoda behind Maitreya Inner Hall. Five years later, his grave was opened and his body was found to still be intact. Cihang Hall was consequently constructed and his body was enshrined in the Cihang Memorial Hall as the first embalmed Bodhisattva in Taiwan.