Assessing the ‘1840’ Birth-Date of Master Xu Yun ​

[Shi Da Dao]

Venerable Old Master Xu Yun (虚云老和尚) - Guangji (广济) Temple, Beijing (May 30th-June 3rd 1953)

​Research and Translation by Adrian Chan-Wyles PhD

Translator’s Note: It is not the intention of this article to argue that it is normal, common or even expected for an ordinary human-being to live into his or her 120th year of life. On the other hand, it is also true that throughout human history certain human-beings have lived extraordinarily (and well documented) long life-spans. Rameses the Great (I.e. Rameses II) [1303-1213BCE] of Egypt lived for 90 years when the average age of mortality was just 30 years for an ordinary Egyptian. Fathers, son and grandsons served him from the cradle to the grave, and for a time literally believed he was ‘immortal’ right up until the day he died. Although well within an expected long life-span today, within ancient Egypt the idea of living 90 years was almost unbelievable! As human society has progressed in its scientific understanding and organization, people across the world routinely live to 90, 100 and even 110 years of age, and occasionally even longer. This observation does not mean that ALL people live this long, (on the contrary, in areas of economic poverty people live decidedly must shorter lives), or that everybody in a developed society should expect to live this long, (for as the number of years rises in age, the number of people reaching these advanced ages dramatically diminishes), but it does suggest that within the human genome there exists the possibility to live this long. A robust genetics, coupled with an idyllic or tranquil external life circumstance which avoids war, disaster, injury and illness, quite often guarantees a long life-span – just as a genetic-switch can terminate an apparently healthy existence at a relatively young age, (many people in the developed world, for instance, die at 27 years of age for apparently no reason). In the UK there is still the unsolved riddle of Thomas Parr (1483-1635, who was Buried by Royal Command in Westminster Abbey due to his (apparent) old age. Marshal Zhang Xueliang (張學良) [1901-2001), for instance, is reliably documented as living for 100 years despite spending his younger years participating in politics and the violence of warfare. In the Wenzhou area of Zhejiang province, Chinese media reported that by the end of 2015, there were 208,000 elderly people over the age of 80 in Wenzhou; 26,400 senior citizens over the age of 90; with 439 being confirmed as 100 years old or above, including 94 from Yongjia and 72 from Yueqing. This type of demographics is not uncommon in China today, with many people even prior to 1949 living to very old ages despite the grinding poverty and 90% illiteracy rate. If a person was to live just beyond the boundary of perceived acceptability for human longevity, then China would be a good place for it to happen and the example of Master Xu Yun is a good candidate. In March 2019, the Guiness Book of Records confirmed what they believe to be the oldest living human as being one ‘Kane Tanaka’ of Japan who has been verified as being born in 1903, and is now 116 years old! I think there is a good chance that Master Xu Yun was in his 120th year of age when he died in 1959, and that the 2008 Taiwanese Study which seeks to disparage his age has not proven its case, and indeed cannot prove its case. My reasons for coming to this conclusion are laid in my following article. Taiwanese academics tend to limit their analysis of Master Xu Yun’s life to Cen Xue Lu’s basic biography completed in the late 1950’s, and ignores the much more comprehensive and indepth version extant within Mainland China. The contention that Master Xu Yu’s age is the product of a massive conspiracy is untenable as it would require the extensive collaboration of the Nationalists (prior to 1949), the Communists (both before and after 1949), and the Warlords (and other ‘traditionalists’ and supporters of the Chinese imperial system) primarily before 1949 in China. Furthermore, this ‘conspiracy’ would have to be watertight whilst being continuously ‘maintenanced’ by Chinese political groups highly antagonistic to one another.
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This article focuses upon the 2008 Taiwanese academic paper entitled ‘還「虛雲」一個本來面目： 他的年紀與事蹟新論’ - or ‘Return to Xu Yun’s Original Face – A New Theory of His Age and Deeds’ - published in the Journal of the Yuanguang Buddhist University (Taiwan: Institute of Buddhist Studies). Like the thinking of the Chinese-American academic Hu Shi (whose thinking has been revealed as flawed by Cen Xue Lu a number of times, and also by the modern academic Chen Jinguo (陈进国), of the History Department of Xiamen University, who produced a research paper in 1998 entitled ‘Hu Shi and Xu Yun’s Autobiography; Avoiding Nonsense Through Thinking and the May Fourth Movement’), and may be viewed as a continuation of that rhetorical attack upon the traditional culture and attitudes prevalent within Mainland China both before and after the 1949 Revolution. This is just one strand of the many narratives to which Xu Yun’s biography has been exposed, as I feel certain Xu Yun the man did not intend his biography to be used for any overt political purpose, and yet that is exactly how it was edited by the Nationalist Cen Xue Lu, and how it entered the West through Charles Luk’s English translation. Master Xu Yun was distinctly ‘apolitical’, but he was not stupid. He understood how the world worked, and he used politics wherever he could as a means to support and protect the Dharma. Cen Xue Lu’s omitting of Nationalist atrocities in China against religion (which he admittedly participated in when young) makes Xu Yun’s early biography appear pro-Nationalist and anti-Communist – a representation that fitted-in exactly with the Wester Cold War views which prevailed throughout the 1950s and 1960s in the West – and yet Xu Yun’s ‘real’ and ‘complete’ biography still remains unknown in the West. In China today, Xu Yun’s biography today, (thanks to the Venerable Jing Hui and many others) has been extensively enlarged as more eyewitness evidence has been gathered in the decades following Xu Yun’s death. Regardless of the political sensitivities of those Westerners who have read and accepted Xu Yun’s limited biography as ‘truth’, the fact remains that Xu Yun’s relationship with the Socialist Movement in China, and the equally interesting (and positive) associations between leading Communist intellectuals and Buddhism remains untold. Indeed, one of the reasons that Xu Yun is still coming under rhetorical attack from the US-backed intellectuals of Taiwan is that Chinese language users have relatively easy access to numerous written texts (mostly inaccessible to Westerners unless translated) that paint a very different association between Xu Yun and the Revolutionary forces of China. How many Westerners are aware that Zhou Enlai (周恩来) - the 1st Premier of the People’s Republic of China – was a devout disciple of Master Xu Yun? Or, that contrary to Western (negative) misrepresentations of him – Mao Zedong had a profound interest in Buddhism and even considered becoming a disciple of Xu Yun? Why did Cen Xue Lu (or Charles Luk, for that matter), not mention this fact in their work, when it is considered common knowledge throughout China and much of the Chinese diaspora? Why is there no mention of Chiang Kai-Shek's rounding-up and murder of thousands of Communists in 1927, or his ‘White Terror’ campaign which began on the Mainland of China and was exported through with the Nationalist ‘invasion’ and ‘subjugation’ of the island of Taiwan, and was continued by that regime until 1989? Why did Cen Xue Lu not include a ‘note’ about the Nationalist destruction of the Shaolin Temple (the birth-place of Chinese Ch’an Buddhism) and the murder of the monks in 1928? What was he trying to hide? These are important omissions considering Cen Xue Lu’s insistence (through his ‘note’ of commentary) which put words into Xu Yun’s mouth regarding the alleged ‘Yunmen Incident’. Needless to say, the ‘Yunmen Incident’ does not appear in Mainland Chinese versions of Xu Yun’s biography (at least not in the form presented by Cen Xue Lu) simply because there is no supporting evidence for it. As this is something of a ‘sacred cow’ for Western disinformation regarding China, many Western readers may well feel disconcerted. Good. My function is to present facts and expose fictions, whilst being ‘unmoved’ by the already established false narratives and paradigms that surround Master Xu Yun’s biography. This task is not the simple ‘matter of opinion’ that all apologists who oppose China resort to, but is rather a matter of cultivating ‘wisdom’ over the rejection of ‘ignorance’ - a task fulfilling in accordance with the Dharma, and supportive of upholding the teaching and practice method upheld by Ch’an Master Xu Yun himself. Zhou Enlai even admitted that his interpretation of Socialism was directed by his Buddhist practice, but he was not alone in the Communist Party of China. It is recorded that Li Xiannian (李先念) took Refuge in the Triple Gem at the ‘Little Forest Temple’ (少林寺 – Shao Lin Si), and Liu Shaoqi (刘少奇) took Refuge in the Triple Gem on Mount Potalaka (菩陀山 – Pu Tuo Shan). Being exposed to these facts (and many others) that do not accord with the current Western misrepresentation of China does not require any change in secular, religious or political viewpoints held in the mind of the reader. Simply acknowledging mistakes or untruths does not require a change in affiliation to a belief, or the abandoning of deeply held attitudes, etc. The Taiwanese article does not make its case for a number of reasons, and certainly does not dislodge Master Xu Yun’s assertion that he was born in 1840. I could write volumes on the bias nature of Cen Xue Lu’s editing of Xu Yun’s biography, or on the alleged altering of that biography in China even before it got into the hands of Cen Xue Lu in Hong Kong, but again, this would make no difference to Xu Yun’s birth-date.
ACW (7.5.2019)
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‘In 1953, with the formal founding of the Chinese Buddhist Association, Xu Yun was elected Honorary President. At the same time, Xu Yun was also elected to the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).’
‘1953年发起成立中国佛教协会，被选举为名誉会长。时年，当选为全国政协委员。’
(释虚云预言中国是真的吗?释虚云故事简介 www.chuangjiadianzi.com/jdth/79819184/85191.html)
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Why would the age of an eminent Chinese Ch’an Buddhist Master - such as the Venerable Old Xu Yun (1840-1959) - be a subject of controversy? Normally, births and deaths can be easily (or at least satisfactorily) verified using various historical sources of information. This shouldn’t be a very difficult task as Master Xu Yun did not live that long ago, with his existence occurring very close to the 21st century (with his life spanning the 19th and 20th centuries). There is no argument over his date of death (13.10.1959), which is well recorded and documented in modern China. Furthermore, numerous witnesses were present in the location of his passing (which was witnessed directly by Master Ti Guang), and have left various testimonies detailing the circumstance. This is why no one seriously questions Master Xu Yun’s date of death as happening in 1959. Therefore, ‘1959’ is an established fact beyond question and any reasonable doubts. The point of contention is the year of his birth which Master Xu Yun’s biographers convey as being ‘1840’ (actually ‘5.9.1840’). If correct, this would suggest that Master Xu Yun died in his 119th year of life, just over 5 weeks (in fact 38 days) prior to his 120th birthday. It is further stated that he was in his 101st year of being an Ordained Member of the Sangha (or community of Buddhist monks whose lives are regulated and controlled by the Vinaya Discipline). This would mean that he lived nearly two full terms of the Chinese zodiac (which repeats its cycle every 60 years). How could somebody live that long? The traditional view in China is that Master Xu Yun lived so long because of his morally ‘pure’ lifestyle, and the powerful virtue he generated as a consequence. As virtue is linked to wisdom, and considering that both attributes are viewed as highly positive in effect, Master Xu Yun’s dedication to the Vinaya Discipline ensured that his body (and mind) remained untarnished by the inherent corruption of the world (generated by greed, hatred and delusion), and that his penetration and realization of the empty mind ground (through deep and profound meditation), ensured that a certain biological and psychological ‘force’ was cultivated that manifested in real terms as a type of ‘immortality’ which is common within many schools of Daoism, and sees people live well into their 80s, 90s, or 100 years! A pure vegetarian diet coupled with various keep-fit activities (designed to strengthen the inner and outer body), are coupled with the wise avoidance of any harmful situations, habits or activities. This preventative approach is known to be generally effective in both the East and West in reducing the chances of developing or contracting serious illnesses or suffering life-threatening injuries, etc. Of course, no amount of good and careful living can prevent genetic disorders from arising or early deaths from occurring, but even in this situation those who die relatively young have a clearer mind and a more fulfilled life experience. Conversely, it is also important to consider that if an individual inherited extraordinary genetics, then his or her lifespan would be expected to be longer than that of the average existence for the age. The point is that a strict and disciplined lifestyle designed to achieve a profound moral objective can be the foundation for a longer life, particularly if the individual concerned possesses a robust genetic blueprint which only serves to magnify and enhance this effect.

There are no known medical records pertaining to Master Xu Yun. As his body was cremated shortly after his death, there is no surviving genetic material. As he was born in 1840, there are no eyewitnesses to the event outside of his family (this was true even during his lifetime). There is no impartial evidence to confirm that Master Xu Yun was born in 1840, or at least any form of evidence which would satisfy all enquiries. In-short, there is no birth certificate or signatures of witnesses dating to 1840. However, although Master Xu Yun gives this birth-date as ‘1840’, it is also true that much later in his life, when his two former ‘wives’ (from an unconsummated marriage) contacted him (each had become Buddhist nuns when Xu Yun left for the hills to become a monk), both these venerable ladies (when giving a brief biography of Xu Yun) attribute to him exactly the same birth-year of ‘1840’. This probably derives from the fact that these two women had known Xu Yun’s father (his mother had died shortly after giving birth to him), and had learned his history (and that of his ancestors) as a preparation for entering his family. It is also evident that the internal chronology of his biography fully supports the ‘1840’ hypothesis, with many characters acting as if it was a well-known fact at the time (from his early life onwards). It seems reasonable to suggest that it is doubtful that Xu Yun’s biographers concocted this date and then conspired to fabricate a biography around it. If that were likely, then it would have been in their best interests to have chosen a more readily ‘believable’ date.

Master Xu Yun obviously believed that he was born in 1840, and this idea must have been passed on to him by his father (and other relatives old enough to have experienced and remembered his birth). Even when young this birth-date prevailed with no doubts being expressed by anyone. As he was young, (and living in an era much closer to 1840), this birth-date was of no particular importance whatsoever, as Xu Yun was not that old. It only becomes significant (and open to question) when viewed in the light of his death in 1959 – then, and only then – is this date open to question. Master Xu Yun dictated his biography in the early 1950s to his monastic disciples (the names of whom are unclear). In the year 1950-1951, after his return to the Yunmen temple (after a visit to the temple at Nanhua), whilst apparently being in his 111th year of age, Master Xu Yun began the labourious process of gathering and putting all his writings in good order. From his 112th year onwards (according to his editor Cen Xue Lu), the details of Xu Yun’s life were added to the biography as they occurred. Interestingly, Xu Yun states that much of the difficulty of this process lay in the fact that many of his manuscripts were written decades ago (probably implying a difficulty in contextualization). Although his assumed birth-date was not a secret, how Master Xu Yun records this in his biography (compiled in the early 1950s) must be examined.

Contemporary (standard) Chinese language sources state the birth and death dates of Master Xu Yun as being:

‘应该是1840年9月5日生，1959年10月13日圆寂.’

This can be translated as ‘the birthdate should be the 5th of the 9th month, 1840, and the death date is the 13th day of the 10th month, 1959.’ As Master Xu Yun’s date of passing is well-known and reliably recorded, it is his date of birth which is often subjected to question. Taking Xu Yun’s date of death as proven, we must concentrate our investigative efforts upon examining his date of birth. In his Chinese language autobiographical text (虛雲和尚年譜 - Xu Yun He Shang Nian Pu), Master Xu Yun states the following about his birth-date:

‘道光二十年庚子一歲（一八四○年）七月二十九日寅時。予誕生於泉州府署。初墮地。為一肉團。母大駭慟。以今後無復舉子望。遂氣壅死。翌日有賣藥翁來。為破之。得男。由庶母王氏撫育。’

According to this written testimony (compiled by his disciples), Master Xu Yun claims to have been born during the 20th year of the reign of the Qing Emperor Daoguang (道光). This is further clarified as being described as ‘Gengzi’ (庚子 ) - or the ‘37th year’ of the repeating 60 year ‘Branch and Stem’ Lunar Calendar Cycle (with 1780 being the previous occurrence, and 1900 the next). This correlates to the Western year ‘1840’ (and is included in the text as ‘一八四○年’). I find it interesting that the year is included in its Western context and suspect it was inserted by Xu Yun’s biographer – Cen Xue Lu ((岑學呂) - as in all other aspects this text does not conform to a conventional Western biography. I doubt that Master Xu Yun would have included the Western year when the Chinese year was more than enough information to convey it. On the other hand, Nationalist China had adopted the Western (Gregorian) Calendar in January, 1912, operating a dual calendar policy, with ‘New’ China officially using the Western calendar from 1949 onward. However, the old (Lunar) Calendar continued to be used for traditional matters. Furthermore, lay-disciple Charles Luk (1898-1978) had already discussed with Master Xu Yun the possibility of ‘transmitting’ Chinese Ch’an Buddhism to the West through expert English translation. Cen Xue Lu does state in other texts that he had deliberately questioned Master Xu Yun about this year (1840), and that Xu Yun listened attentively and answered in the affirmative – giving reassurances that it is correct. Master Xu Yun knew about the West, was opposed to the Christianization of China (see his scathing letter to Chiang Kai-Shek), and was concerned about the spiritual welfare of foreigners. Did he include his birth-year in the traditional AND modern (Western) format as appears to be the case when reading his received biography ‘Empty Cloud’? Or, was he thinking in strictly traditional Chinese Lunar Calendar terms? Adding the Western year does not necessarily imply a fabrication, but rather a clarification of Xu Yun’s birth-year to modern-minded Chinese language readers, and possibly eventual Western readers.

In the 1988 re-print of ‘Empty Cloud’ (Element Books), the editor – Richard Hunn (1949-2006) - explains that Master Xu Yun was born on the 26th of August, 1840. The original (Chinese language) biographical text states:

‘七月二十九日寅時’
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When literally translated, this reads ‘the 29th day of the 7th lunar month.’ According to Chinese language sources, the Lunar New Year in 1840 began on February 3rd (the Year of the Rat). Xu Yun records that he was born in the hour of ‘寅’ (Yin) (of the 3rd Earthly Branch), which means he was born between 3am-5am in the morning. In China, 1840 was a ‘leap year’ (which means an extra lunar month was added to maintain the regular cycle of the seasons). Taking ‘February’ as the first lunar month, then the seventh lunar month correlates with ‘August’ (the eighth solar month). A lunar month consists of either 29 or 30 days – with Charles Luk’s English biography (I.e. ‘Empty Cloud’) stating that Xu Yun was born on the ‘last day’ (I.e. the ‘29th') of the seventh lunar month. The English translation of Xu Yun’s biography then transliterates this date as being the ‘26th of August’, which is possibly an editing error that should have read the ‘29th of August’. In the past, however, it has often been notoriously difficult to ascertain ‘exact’ dates when converting the Chinese Lunar Calendar into the Western (Gregorian) Calendar. The exact date of Xu Yun’s death, for instance, is recorded in the original Chinese language biography as occurring on the ‘13th day of the ninth lunar month’ (十三日即農曆九月十二日), with the Western year ‘1959’ being included as ‘一九五九年’. Modern Chinese scholarship, when taking into account all the many variables concerning the two different calendars, has settled upon an official transliteration of Master Xu Yun being born on the 5th of September, 1840, and dying on the 13th of October, 1959. These are the nearest approximate dates that give a Western context to the received biography of Master Xu Yun. There is one week’s difference for his birth (the 29th of August becomes the 5th of September), and one month’s difference for his death (the 13th of September becomes the 13th of October). It is clear that Master Xu Yun (and/or his disciples) preferred the use of the Chinese Lunar Calendar and that his editor – Cen Xue Lu – devised a Western (Gregorian) Calender to correspond for each entry. Within traditional Chinese thinking, a person is born already one year old – and when they die – another year is added out of respect. Indeed, within Master Xu Yun’s Chinese language biography, Xu Yun clearly states that when he was born (in 1840), he was ‘one year old’. As he died in his 120th year (just short of his 120th birthday), an added year would mean that he died in his 121st year.

As a point of fact, the author of this essay has no respect for the Chinese-American academic known as ‘Hu Shi’ (胡适) [1891-1962]. Following the defeat of the ‘Boxer Uprising’ against the Western and Japanese imperialist and colonial presence in China, the United States, as one of the victorious belligerents, demanded ‘reparations’ from the Chinese Imperial Government, which included the requirement of Chinese youths being sent to the US for re-education – paid for by the Chinese State. Hu Shi was one of these children and became very popular amongst Western academics and thinkers, as his cultivated ‘anti-Chinese’ attitudes, (I.e. his imbued Eurocentrism) appeared to legitimize Western anti-Chinese racism. The brain-washing process he underwent as part of the Western imperialist process of domination created in him a natural hatred of the culture of his own ethnic background. Cen Xue Lu, for instance, despite being a Nationalist and a supporter of the West, took exception to the disrespectful attitudes expressed by Hu Shi. Cen Xue Lu, on a number of occasions, answered Hu Shi in public, and proved time and again that his assertions that either Master Xu Yun was lying about his age, or that those around him had concocted the story, were poorly thought-out and not correctly researched. Hu Shi could not answer these charges because they are true. Instead, Hu Shi retained his rhetorical position that Xu Yun could not have been born in 1840, and that it is illogical (and backward) to believe such a story. In other words, whether it was correct or not to question Xu Yun’s birth-year as being ‘1840’, Hu Shi had not satisfactorily ‘defined his terms’ in the required academic sense. This all fits in with the rather schizophrenic Western (I.e. ‘US’) attitude toward Communist China, which on the one-hand illogically accuses China as being ‘atheistic’ and ‘brutally oppressive’ of religious beliefs and religious practices, whilst simultaneously accusing the Chinese State of encouraging ‘religious ignorance’ and a ‘belief in superstition’! Indeed, the Chinese State (like the US Constitution) separates Church from State, and the Classroom from the Church – preferring the development of science and technology as the way to develop society. Freedom of religion is guaranteed within the Chinese Constitution, contrary to the disinformation that is commonplace in the West. At the time of his expressing it, Hu Shi was unable to prove his assertion that Xu Yun’s birth-year was wrong. This has led others to conclude that his motivation was only that of the disparaging of China’s spirituality at the behest of his US paymasters.

Is it reasonable to question the birth-year of Master Xu Yun? The answer is ‘yes’, of course, but this must be a careful investigation that moves methodically through the research data and does not jump to conclusions, advocate unproven theories, or behave in a manner that is disrespectful to the subject. There is no doubt that Xu Yun’s biography was used by Cen Xue Lu to attack Communist China (virtually all Nationalist atrocities against Buddhism are ignored by Cen Xue Lu) – who laughingly ignores the Nationalist destruction of the Shaolin Temple in 1928! This is particularly concerning for Xu Yun’s story, as the Shaolin Temple is considered the birth-place of Chinese Ch’an Buddhism! Xu Yun also criticized Tibetan Buddhist practices, but Cen Xue Lu played these allegations down (at a time when the CIA operation in Tibet was fully underway), with even Charles Luk trying to ‘distance’ Xu Yun’s opinions from his own biography! Charles Luk also omitted a scathing letter Master Xu Yun wrote to Chiang Kai-Shek which criticized his preference for Christianity! (Charles Luk got around this issue by publishing an English translation of this letter - separately from the biography). It certainly appears that Xu Yun’s biography was tampered with by people unknown, at some point in its transportation to Cen Xue Lu who was living in Hong Kong in the 1950s. Cen Xue Lu might have put a ‘Nationalist’ spin to the manner in which he ‘edited’ the original Chinese language text, so that by the time it reached Charles Luk for translation into English, it was already in its familiar format. Of course, since that time, this basic biography has grown in Mainland China as much more data has been recovered and added over the years, and yet no conclusive evidence disproving the birth-year of ‘1840’ has ever been found. The Chinese Government still (academically) advises that Master Xu Yun’s biographical dates should still be considered as being ‘1840-1959’.

What are the competing theories which deny the year of ‘1840’? The dissenting voices that continue to support Hu Shi’s original disparaging of Xu Yun’s birth-year, have received substantial academic support and focus from a 2008 Chinese language article entitled ‘還「虛雲」一個本來面目： 他的年紀與事蹟新論’ - or ‘Return to Xu Yun’s Original Face – A New Theory of His Age and Deeds’ - published in the Journal of the Yuanguang Buddhist University (Taiwan: Institute of Buddhist Studies). 2008- 06, (13th issue). Chinese scholar Yang Shuda (杨树达) [1885-1956] was of the opinion that Master Xu Yun was born in ‘1846’ - the 26th year of the reign of Qing Emperor Daoguang. In the Chinese language text entitled ‘鼓山虛公禪行述聞’, or the ‘Gushan Recorded Public Ch’an Talks of Xu Yun’, it is stated that Xu Yun was born during the 10th year of the reign of Qing Emperor Xianfeng (咸豐) - or the Western year 1860. In the Chinese language text entitled ‘云南西山靖国云栖禅寺募捐启’ or ‘Donations Collected at the Yunqi Ch’an Temple, Jingguo, Xishan, Yunnan’ it is recorded that in 1929, Master Xu Yun stated that he had ‘been old and thin for quite some time’, and that he was born ‘no earlier than 1860’. In the Chinese language text entitled ‘雲南雞足山祝聖寺虛雲和尚略傳’, or ‘Yunnan, Jizushan, Zhu Sheng Temple, Brief Biography of the Venerable Monk Xu Yun’, it is stated that Xu Yun was born in the 12th year of the reign of the Qing Emperor Tongzhi (同治) - or the Western year 1873. An uncle of Xu Yun’s is reported as saying that he (Xu Yun was born during the 10th year of the reign of the Qing Emperor Tongzhi – or the Western year 1871. These reports are interesting but far from conclusive, with the added complication that this ‘Taiwanese’ article adopts a disrespectful tone about Master Xu Yun’s own viewpoint that he was born in 1840, whilst having no such reservations about uncritically accepting what amounts to odd comments here and there apparently contradicting the 1840 narrative. There is no suggestion, for instance, that these reports might be wrong, alterations or the products of bad record keeping. There is a difference of opinion in this paper that although rejecting 1840 as unlikely, nevertheless presents an equally improbable array of alternative dates which spans the years 1846 to 1873! If 1846 is rejected as being unlikely, then Xu Yun’s alternative birth-year could fall anywhere between 1860 – 1873. This is certainly possible, but we must tread very carefully on this unsteady research terrain.

This paper rejects the opinion of Yang Shuda (an eminent academic) on the grounds that he a) lived during the time of Master Xu Yun, and b) was influenced by the many people he knew who also knew Master Xu Yun. In other words, the opinion of Yang Shuda is rejected on the grounds that he is an eyewitness, and assumed to be part of an elaborate conspiracy which has involved many people at different times, living in various places. Together, those who were contemporaries of Master Xu Yun are assumed to be collectively ‘guilty’ of conspiring to build a false chronological narrative around the biography of Master Xu Yun, and making him appear ‘sage-like’ by living nearly 120 years! Although the biography as edited by Cen Xue Lu (and translated into English by Charles Luk) is bias toward the Nationalist (and pro-Western) political view, it is equally obvious that Cen Xue Lu did not fabricate the birth-date of ‘1840’, which appears to be the year Master Xu Yun sincerely believed himself to have been born, as he spent most of his time trying to verify its accuracy in various ways. If there had been a conspiracy to ‘alter’ Xu Yun’s birth-date, then Cen Xue Lu would have to have been a key player who understood not to deviate from the script (by providing evidence of different or actual dates, through the further research he routinely carried-out, etc.) Bhiksuni Qing Jie (one of Xu Yun’s former wives) wrote a letter to Xu Yun in 1910, which stated that as Xu Yun had left home more than fifty years ago. Although the above Taiwanese paper suggests that Xu Yun could have been born somewhere between 1860-1873, Bhiksuni Qing Jie explain that Xu Yun’s father – Xiao Yutang – died in 1864-1865 – after which Xu Yun’s two former wives and his former step mother all became Buddhist nuns. In Xu Yun’s biography, his mother (who died shortly after giving birth to him) is described as already being over ‘40 years of age’ in 1840. If Xu Yun’s father died in 1864-1865, then following the established logic of the Taiwanese paper, Xu Yun could have only been born between 1860-1864, and even then, only to a very aged father! We are further informed that Xu Yun’s stepmother – now known as the Buddhist nun Bhiksuni Miao Jin – passed away as an old woman. Whereas Xu Yun was believed to have been 70 years of age in 1910, his stepmother was aged over 80 years at the time of her death in that same year. Bhiksuni Qing Jie further explains that Xu Yun’s uncle died in 1875-1876 – perhaps the same ‘uncle’ cited in the above paper who supposedly claimed Xu Yun was born in 1871! Of course, none of this ‘internal’ evidence matters if it is all assumed to be false, but interestingly, this is not the end of the story. A government official at the time (who was also a disciple of Master Xu Yun) named Upasaka Chen Yung-chang (the Chief Secretary for the Central Government), had the letters and poems written by Bhiksuni Miao Jin and Bhiksuni Qing Jie engraved upon a stone tablet – to which was added a number of poems written by Xu Yun himself. This is known as the Yunnan Stone Tablet Records. In his ‘Open Letter to Hu Shi’, this is what Cen Xue Lu had to say about these tablets:

‘When I edited Xu Yun’s autobiography, I did not have access to other (corroborating) historical documents in Hong Kong. I worked entirely from the information contained within the forwarded biographical material. There was a great deal of information about the Yunnan era, stone tablet records, the early Gushan era (when Xu Yun was a disciple), and a relatively brief biographical sketch (which included his birthplace). Within this data was included the name of his father – Yu Tang (玉堂) – who was a local government official based in the Zhangzhou - Quanzhou prefectural area of Fujian province. I incorporated all these details into the autobiography, and did not omit or add (i.e. fabricate) any additional information. This is to make clear that the Yunnan era gathas have not been changed in anyway. (When I visited the Nanhua Temple in 1936, [situated in Qujiang, northern Guangdong province], I asked the Guest Master whether there had been any criticism regarding the inscribed details concerning Xu Yun’s life. He answered that the text of the inscriptions had been published 13 times to date, and that he had never heard of any criticism, and thought the text was factual.) This master was a fully ordained monk.’
​
Between 1937-1949, the British academic John Blofeld (1913-1983) resided initially in Hong Kong and spent much of his time travelling throughout China. During the twelve year stay he was introduced to Master Xu Yun – and he was told by other Chinese people he met that Xu Yun was considered well over one hundred years old even then! In 1937-1938, Master Xu Yun is recorded as being in his 98th year of life. His biography states that Xu Yun was one hundred years old in 1939-1940 – which would suggest that John Blofeld met him and became his disciple between 1940-1949. Indeed, it is during this period that Master Xu Yun was the Head Monk of the Nanhua Temple in Guangdong province – the place where he met John Blofeld. John Blofeld’s popular biographical novels are essentially Eurocentric travelogues that sentimentalize the East whilst subtly misrepresenting the interesting facts which they convey. That being said, it is obvious that even before Xu Yun’s biography was being compiled in the early 1950s, it was common knowledge that he was over a hundred years old in the 1940s. This being the case, where did this belief come from? Writing in his 1978 book entitled ‘The Wheel of Life’ (Rider), Page 87, John Blofeld repeats what was said to him – that Master Xu Yun was over one hundred years old and could walk thirty miles a day and outpace even the young men training with him!
Within the biography of the Venerable Old Monk Miao Lian [妙莲] (1824-1907) - Xu Yun’s Buddhist master – we find the following information:
​
‘During the 8th year of the reign of emperor Xian Feng (1858), there was a 19 year old youth who came from Hunan, who wanted to become a Buddhist monk at the Yongquan Temple. His head was shaved by the venerable old monk Chang Kai (常开和尚 – Chang Kai He Shang) and he received the initial precepts to become a monk. The following year, when this youth was 20 years old, he became a disciple of master Miao Lian and received the full ordination vows. This monk later became an accomplished and very much respected old Ch’an master known as the venerable Xu Yun (虚云老和尚 – Xu Yun Lao He Shang).’
​
This rare and obscure biography confirms Xu Yun’s birth-date, stating that in 1958-1959, he was 19 years old, whilst in 1959-1960 he was 20 years old. This, and many other texts containing biographical information regarding Xu Yun would have to be proven as a) individually ‘faked’ or ‘contrived’ in some way, whilst b) then being expertly ‘weaved’ together into a sophisticated mosaic of deliberate disinformation. This is an unlikely occurrence. It would demand a peaceful and united China of quite some historical standing, and an implication to spend hundreds of hours and resources upon the fabricating of the age of an old Buddhist monk, who at the time (at the end of his life) was subsumed by the forces of warfare and Revolution etc. Those who question the ‘1840’ birth-date must also explain all the corroboration for this date, rather than simply stating ‘fraud’ instead of providing deconstructive evidence. This suggests that Xu Yun’s birth-date has been the victim (and subject) of pseudo-academia in Taiwan (and elsewhere), which has been either partly or fully motivated by racism, religious bigotry and political bias. If conclusive evidence of a different birth-date was ever attained, I would use this information to piece together how an apparent deception was contrived and very successfully carried-out, despite being very unlikely. Until that time, the idea that Master Xu Yun lived a long life because he was a good person remains as good an explanation as any other. After-all, he was not a mythical figure and we know for sure that he did actually exist as a distinct human-being.

It is unlikely that an average person can live to 119 years old, but people living long periods of time throughout history (including Mainland China with many being well over 100 years old) are not unknown. As someone who advocates logic and reason, as well as the development of science as a means to develop society, I am well aware of the issues surrounding Xu Yun’s apparent birth-year. My considered opinion that the case against the ‘1840’ year is unproven and can probably never be proven considering all the known facts. Anyone can claim any birth-year for Xu Yun and throw-out some other date here or there, but these dates have absolutely NO historical context and are suspicious because of this. Another issue is that as well as the Eurocentric racism which imbues virtually all Western discourse about China, the religious (Judeo-Christian) right would also like to see the old age of Master Xu Yun disparaged and disproven as a method for demeaning a) Chinese traditional values linking longevity to a long life, and b) toward Buddhism and its atheistic teachings. China is a great and ancient civilization (as Joseph Needham proved through his research), and I see no reason to doubt Master Xu Yun’s birth-year of ‘1840’, particularly as most of these doubts are politically and religiously loaded. I say this because evidence-based research points to the year being correct and not wrong. The Taiwanese study mentioned above is a pointless piece of research which conveys some interesting facts. The fact remains that no single group (or groups) of people could have devised a completely false biography from beginning to end, which made it look probable that Xu Yun was born in 1840. What would be the point? The Nationalist regime (which basically hijacked Xu Yun’s biography in its early days) was pro-Western and pro-modernization at any cost. The Communist Government, although not pro-Western and definitely anti-imperialist, also supported a modernization premised upon scientific development (which we see in China today). Neither supported (at the time) the literal interpretation of traditional values, although both regimes today have developed a post-modern appreciation of tradition which is now supportive of the modernization process (or at least does not obstruct it). By not rejecting the modernization process, the State supports and propagates these traditions. The Warlord factions of Northern China – who justified their regimes by appealing to traditional values, were defeated by Chiang Kai-Shek decades before the death of Xu Yun in 1959. By the same forces, incidentally, that destroyed the Shaolin Temple in 1928. Simply presenting isolated dates that differ from ‘1840’ is just not good as a response to this issue of an extraordinarily long life. What we see is the prejudices in the minds of the protestors who cannot conclusively defeat the claims of Old Master Xu Yun.


©opyright: Adrian Chan-Wyles (ShiDaDao) 2019.

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