Late-Qīng lay Buddhist scholar Péng Shàoshēng 彭紹升 (1740 – Jiāqìng 1 1st month 20th day = 28 February 1796), zì Yǔnchū 允初, hào Chǐmù 尺木 / Èrlín jūshì 二林居士 / Zhīguīzǐ 知歸子, fǎmíng (Buddhist upāsaka name) Jìqīng 際清 (whence the alternate Péng Jìqīng 彭際清). Native of Chángzhōu 長洲 (modern Sūzhōu, Jiāngsū). The single most consequential lay-Buddhist intellectual of the High Qīng — a leading figure in the jūshìfójiào 居士佛教 (lay Buddhist) revival of the late-eighteenth century, and one of the principal exponents of rúfó héyī 儒佛合一 (Confucian-Buddhist unity).
Earned his jìn-shì 進士 in 1761 at the age of twenty-two but declined office. As a young man he was attracted first to the Lù-Wáng xīn-xué 陸王心學 (Lù-Xiàngshān–Wáng-Yángmíng “school of mind”) and to Daoism; reading the works of Hān-shān Dé-qīng 憨山德清, Zǐ-bó Zhēn-kě 紫柏真可, and Lián-chí Zhū-hóng 蓮池祩宏 of the late-Míng sì-dà-shī 四大師 turned him to Buddhism. At twenty-nine he adopted vegetarianism; he then read systematically through the Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna sūtras and śāstras. After examining other schools he settled on Pure Land devotion as his core practice, taking the bodhisattva-precepts at thirty-four under the Chán master Wén-xué Shí-dìng 聞學實定 with the fǎ-míng Jì-qīng 際清.
Péng’s lay-Buddhist program had three institutional dimensions: (a) he established a niànfó dàochǎng 念佛道場 in the family compound at Sūzhōu; (b) he organized regular fàngshēng huì 放生會 (“animal-releasing assemblies”) at the family-owned Wénxīnggé 文星閣 (“Star-of-Literature Pavilion”); (c) he closed himself in Wénxīnggé monastic quarters as a recluse, naming his cell Yīxíng 一行 (“Single-Practice”). His writings amount to over twenty titles, of which the most consequential are:
- Yīshèng juéyí lùn 一乘決疑論 (X1550; Resolution of Doubts about the Single Vehicle) — Péng’s chief Buddhist-doctrinal work, arguing for Tiāntái’s yīshèng 一乘 (one vehicle) doctrine and against the sānshèng 三乘 (three vehicles) reading;
- Jūshì zhuàn 居士傳 (Biographies of [Buddhist] Laymen) — the foundational late-imperial reference for lay-Buddhist biography;
- Shànnǚrén zhuàn 善女人傳 (Biographies of Good Women) — the parallel volume for laywomen;
- Tǐrén yàoshù 體仁要術 (KR6k0263, X1139) — a freestanding compilation of fàngshēng documents and devotional texts pertaining to the Wénxīnggé fàngshēng huì;
- Wúliàngshòu jīng qǐxìn lùn 無量壽經起信論 (Pure-Land doctrinal treatise on the Sukhāvatīvyūha).
Péng’s elder son Péng Xīsù 彭希涑 carried on the lay-Buddhist tradition and edited the posthumous Èrlín jūshì jí 二林居士集. Péng’s lay-Buddhist circle in Sūzhōu intersected with the major Qīng evidential-scholarship (kǎozhèng 考證) milieu through his marriage to a Yújiā 余家 cousin of Yú Xiàokè 余蕭客.
Per DILA A001188: born 1740; died Jiāqìng 1 (1796) 1st month, aged 57 (sui); native of Chángzhōu; lay (jūshì); principal works in the late-Qīng lay-Buddhist Pure Land and yīshèng doctrinal traditions. Wikidata: see Chinese-Wikipedia entry on 彭紹升.