Zhōu Sīrén 周思仁 (1656–1739)
The most consequential lay-Buddhist popular-pastoral writer of the early-Qīng period; native of Lùchéng 鹿城 (= Kūnshān 崑山, Jiāngsū). Original name Zhōu Mèngyán 周夢顏; zì Sīrén 思仁; hào Ānshì 安士 (whence the alternate Zhōu Ānshì 周安士 / Ānshì xiānshēng 安士先生 (“Master Ānshì”)); religious sobriquet Huáixī jūshì 懷西居士 (“Lay-Practitioner Cherishing-the-West”). CBDB person id 167519. He passed the xiùcái 秀才 examination but did not pursue the higher examinations or office, devoting himself instead to lay-Buddhist scholarship and devotion.
He is the author of the 《安士全書》 Ānshì quánshū (“Complete Works of Ānshì”), a multi-part popular-Buddhist apologetic anthology composed across his Kāngxī 康熙 / Yōngzhèng 雍正 / early-Qián-lóng 乾隆 mature period and published by stages. The constituent parts include:
- Yīnzhì wén guǎng yì 陰騭文廣義 — an extended Buddhist-doctrinal gloss on the popular Daoist morality-book Wénchāng dìjūn yīnzhì wén;
- Wàn shàn xiān zī 萬善先資 — the anti-killing tract;
- Yù hǎi huí kuáng 欲海回狂 — the anti-lust tract;
- Xī guī zhí zhǐ 西歸直指 — a Pure Land devotional manual; and
- Qǐ xìn zá shuō 啟信雜說 KR6p0120 (X1201) — the Pure Land apologetic anthology directed at Confucian literati resistance.
The Ānshì quánshū was the most widely-circulated lay-Buddhist popular text of the late-imperial and Republican periods. Yìnguāng 印光 (1861–1940) made the Quánshū one of the central texts of his pastoral programme, and it remains in continuous circulation in Chinese Pure Land circles to the present.
He died in Qiánlóng 4 (1739) at the age of 84 (sui). The CBDB record (id 167519) preserves his name without dates; the conventional 1656–1739 bracket follows the standard scholarly literature.