“Still Embroidering the Mountain”: Hu Shih and the Creation of Modern “History of Zen Buddhism” Studies
Data publikacji: 21 mar 2025
Otrzymano: 31 paź 2024
Przyjęty: 30 sty 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/amns-2025-0634
Słowa kluczowe
© 2025 Jianxiao Yang, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Hu Shih is the most representative figure in the 20th century Chinese intellectual circles, his academic thinking has an exceptionally wide range of domains, from philosophy to literature, to culture and education, and so on, all achievements are outstanding. Hu Shih’s academic coverage is extensive, from the history of the classics to the barnyard novels, none of the fields are not included, every place is engraved with his profound insights [1]. Fluent and free, no matter what the subject, can achieve outstanding chapter. From the standpoint of scientism, he conducted a critical study of traditional Chinese culture, among which the study of Zen Buddhism is an important chapter in his academic career [2].
As the years passed, Hu Shih felt a little confused about his own extensive academic involvement, and he once lamented that he did not know what his original profession was. This precisely highlights the breadth of his field of study and the diversity of his interests. He had an important influence in the academic and Buddhist circles. Hu Shih devoted a great deal of effort to Buddhism and wrote extensively on Buddhist history, Buddhist figures, and so on, and his whole life was inseparably linked with Buddhist culture [3-5]. In Hu Shi’s complicated academic exploration, the study of History of Zen Buddhism was always the center of his attention. From 1925 to the eve of his death in 1961, he was still studying the History of Zen Buddhism. It can be said that the study of the History of Zen Buddhism ran through Hu Shi’s life and became an important thread in his academic journey [6].
Literature [7] synthesizes the debate between Hu Shih and Suzuki on Zen enlightenment and explores the testimonies of historical Zen masters and practitioners, arguing that an understanding of Zen enlightenment can be carried out through reason and rationality. Literature [8] emphasizes that the core view of systematization in China has a very important place in Zen Buddhism because many acceptance and positive thought-based practices originated here, and the three arguments of self, enlightenment and practice shaped and adapted Zen practice, and different schools of Zen in China emerged because of different views based on the overlap of the three arguments. Literature [9] assesses the current development of Zen Buddhism in mainland China based on an exploration of Hu Shih’s legacy. It points out that Hu Shih’s work has created a “cultural fever” since its popularity in the last century, and that China’s academic achievements could not have been realized without Hu Shih’s methodological advances. Literature [10] describes that the starting point of Hu Shih, Suzuki, and others is obviously different because of the different positions in studying Zen and the different cultural concepts of the essence of Zen and understanding of Zen. Literature [11] discusses the interaction between China and Japan at the end of the 19th century as the starting point of modernization in East Asia, which also inspired Suzuki’s new perceptions of nativism. It also explores the interactions between Suzuki and people in the same field in China during the same period, which contributed to the reform of Buddhism in China, and Chinese attitudes towards Suzuki’s works. Literature [12] introduces the work of Hu Shih, pointing out that philosophy has been a defender, critic, and opponent of religion in China and anywhere else, and that there is inevitably religion in radical thinkers. Literature [13] emphasizes the importance of Chinese scholars’ attention to the history of Zen Buddhism and their achievement of certain research results. It points out that there are problems such as how to break through mainstream historical thought when writing about Zen thought, and offers insights into these problems. Literature [14] introduces that Zen is a global term that symbolizes a range of beliefs and philosophies. It also emphasizes that one’s attitude towards Zen largely reflects Zen philosophy, Zen art and aesthetics. Literature [15] elaborated Hu Shih’s point of view, stating that the study of Zen is an important part of the study of the history of Chinese philosophy, and at the same time, Zen is also a chapter in the history of Chinese philosophy that is not lacking or missing. Literature [16] denies that East Asian Zen Buddhism is a “negative ritual” in the history of world religions. A study of the views of Chinese and Japanese scholars is conducted to demonstrate the evidence of their application of the literature and to reject their view that the “negative rituals” are only strategies used by scholars to protect Zen Buddhism from their duties.
Tracing the research on the History of Zen Buddhism in the sense of modern academic history, whether it is the discovery of new materials, the formulation of new problems in the History of Zen Buddhism and the discussion on the methodology of the History of Zen Buddhism, all of them have started from Hu Shi. The article fully excavates the related research contents of Hu Shi’s History of Zen Buddhism, and combs through the fact that Hu Shi mainly scrutinizes the development of the History of Zen Buddhism through the evolutionary view of history, and constructs the research methodology of the History of Zen Buddhism with the skeptical attitude of antiquity throughout. Based on the cultural perspective of History of Zen Buddhism, we should echo its methodology and critically analyze the research for Hu Shi’s History of Zen Buddhism. CNKI and Wanfang databases are chosen as the sources of data for the study, and the external characteristics of the current literature and the trend of the evolution of the vein in the field of the research on the History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shi are explored through bibliometrics and social network analysis.
The basis of Hu Shi’s study of the History of Zen Buddhism on the claim of Shenhui’s founding, apart from a part of the koan evidence, is mainly influenced by the central-centrist view of history. Reviewing this conception in the context of Southern Zen as well as the actual background of Chinese Buddhism, one can understand more clearly the local character of Southern Buddhism and the value of the life of local Buddhism. Although Hu Shi’s study of the History of Zen Buddhism is innovative, his conclusions have also attracted many controversies, of which the founding claim of Shenhui on the question of the founder of Southern Zen is a typical example.
Hu Shih’s (1891-1962) study of Zen Buddhism began in 1924-1925 as part of the “History of Chinese Philosophy” following the “Outline of the History of Chinese Philosophy, First Volume” (1919), and was also an important result of the “Organization of the National Histories”. In recent years, some scholars even think that Hu Shi’s Zen studies are closely related to his ideal of “Chinese Renaissance”, and that Hu Shi’s advocacy of the “Revolutionary Sermon of the Divine Council” is precisely one of the conceptual forms of his “de-Indianized” cultural thinking. The “revolution of the Divine Council” advocated by Hu Shi is one of the conceptual forms of his “de-Indianization” of culture. Hu Shih’s Zen studies benefited by leaps and bounds from the discovery of the Dunhuang Zen texts. Prior to the publication of The Remains of the Monk Shenhui (1930), Hu Shi had publicly published articles such as A Study of Zen Buddhism from Translations (1925), Bodhidharma Kao (1927), A Kao of the Ancient History of Zen Buddhism (1928), On the Program of the History of Zen Buddhism (1928), and The Zen Lineage in the Era of Bai Juyi (1928). At this stage, Hu Shih’s Zen studies, in fact, still received considerable attention from the domestic academic circles. The Bodhidharma Examination, for example, has positive responses from letters such as Tang Yutong’s “Program for Discussing the History of Zen Buddhism with Hu Shih” and Taixu’s “Book of Discussing Bodhidharma with Hu Shihzhi”. And “On the Platform of Zen Buddhism History” is the result of the discussion between Hu Shih and Tang Yutong’s draft of the reply letter. The Zen Lineage in the Age of Bai Juyi also received five letters from Shan Bu’an, who discussed the details of the book with Hu Shi. During this period, Hu Shi’s Zen studies were relatively plain and his conclusions were relatively traditional, and he still recognized Huineng’s status [17].
The historical perspective of Buddhism is one of the most important concepts in the study of Buddhism in modern China, and Hu Shi was an early advocate. Since the beginning of the Republic of China, Buddhist disciples have been keen on a scientific view of Buddhist history. In his study of Zen Buddhism, Hu Shih utilized the view of historical evolution, and the Lengjia Zongkao, one of his representative works exploring Zen Buddhism, exemplifies his concept of evolution. Hu Shih suggested that Bodhidharma “founded the Lankavatara Sect …… (the Lankavatara Sect), which became the most authoritative sect in the early years of the eighth century”, and that the founding of Zen “was the result of a long period of evolution”. “He pointed out that “the revolution of Huineng and Shenhui was not a revolution of the Southern Sect against the Northern Sect, but in fact a revolution of the Prajna Sect against the Lankavatara Sect”. He elaborates on the history of the development of the Lankavatara Sect from its inception, development to its zenith, and then to its demise, and discusses in depth the Zen teachings and teachings of the times of Bodhidharma, Huike, Sangchon, Daoxin, and Hongnin, all of which reflect his concept of the evolution of Buddhism. In his articles such as “The Ancient History of Zen Studies”, “The Examination of Bodhidharma”, and “The Biography of the Heze Master Shenhui”, Hu Shih practiced this evolutionary view of history, and even Ge Zhaoguang thought that Hu Shih “stood at this end of history and time, and used the scale of evolution to outline the course of thought of the ancients, as if he were drawing a schematic diagram of the progress of Zen thought projects”. But Hu Shih was actually “a cultural nationalist” who viewed the development of Chinese Buddhism from the standpoint of China’s inherent culture.
Hu Shih looked at the evolution of Chinese Buddhism from an evolutionary historical perspective and pushed for the scientific study of Buddhism and Buddhist studies. He was the master of introducing the evolutionary historical perspective into the study of the history of Buddhism, and the studies on the history of Buddhism by Tang Yutong, Lü Li, Yinshun, and Yanagida Seizan were deeply influenced by his evolutionary historical perspective. Moreover, Hu Shih proposed the study of the Chineseization of Buddhism, and the focus of his analysis was on Zen Buddhism, a typical representative of the Chineseization of Buddhism, which he continued to explore until his later years, creating a new research paradigm, which is of great significance in deepening the study of the history of the Chineseization of Buddhism.
Hu Shi had a leading and guiding role in the formation of the ancient history school in the last century. In particular, Hu Shi emphasized that scholars should “doubt where there is no doubt”. His study of the History of Zen Buddhism was also developed through a series of questions about ancient Zen materials. Hu Shih’s keen sense of questioning has led him to put forward a number of theses on the study of Zen Buddhism, and most of the later generations, whether supporters or opponents, have used his questions as the object of argument or counter-argument, which is Hu Shih’s unique pioneering role.
Hu Shi advocates, for historical and cultural texts, “would rather doubt and wrong, not believe and wrong”, “we doubt the ancient bottom purpose, is to get its ‘true’, that is, doubt is wrong, but also does not matter. We know that a scientist is not wrong. If we believe the wrong things, then we will be fooled. One may be superstitious and willing to be a slave to the ancients, but one must not lead others into the dark path! On the one hand, we study, on the other hand, we should be skeptical, how can we not be fooled!”From this point of view, Hu Shih was brave enough to doubt the antiquity and bear the mistakes, believing that only by doubting the antiquity could he get rid of the status of being a slave of the ancients.
Hu Shi’s skepticism of Zen materials is manifested in three aspects, namely, his skepticism of the historical figures in the heirloom canon, his skepticism of the successive Zen transmissions, and his skepticism of official compilations of books and even imperial edicts. Under the thinking of skepticism of antiquity, Hu Shi not only put forward some great theses, but also discovered some constants in the evolution of Zen culture. Hu Shih also reveals the phenomenon of “climbing up the ladder” among various schools of History of Zen Buddhism. When the Northern Sect was in its heyday, the Niutou Sect claimed to have come from the Northern Sect under Daoshin. After the rise of the Southern Sect, the monks of the various sects rushed to join Huineng, Shenhui, and others. Hu Shih’s argumentation serves as a model for the future in-depth study of the History of Zen Buddhism.
Hu Shi’s focus on materials is a concrete manifestation of his positivist methodology, and his work of collecting and organizing documents is worthy of recognition, but most of the conclusions Hu Shi draws on the basis of materials are biased. The reason for this problem is not in the material itself, but in the shortcomings of Hu Shi’s methodology. Hu Shih once said that the work of organizing the Shenhui literature and the three oldest texts of the Tanjing was only a way of discovering the makers of false histories and finding out the origin and development of these false histories. From this we can see that Hu Shi’s study of the History of Zen Buddhism was in fact only a negative “falsification” work, but he did not stop at this point; instead, he attempted to draw positive conclusions from these materials. Because of this, many of Hu Shi’s conclusions are biased. Hu Shi’s collection and organization of early Zen materials, especially the Dunhuang documents, did prove the unreliability of most of the transmitted Zen records, but he was never able to sort out a clear and complete history of the development of Zen [18].
Hu Shi’s research method starts with skepticism, then assumption, and finally the empirical method of falsification, with history as the background and material as the evidence, which is, in fact, the “no evidence, no belief” method of the Qianjia school. After all, this method is only a kind of deduction, he really did not put forward any strong evidence to overthrow the old History of Zen Buddhism, not to mention the inability to support his new History of Zen Buddhism, and due to the lack of logical analysis, most of his conclusions appear to be arbitrary, even ridiculous. However, it is undeniable that Hu Shi’s positivist approach still has a great influence on the academic world, and many of his testimonies on the History of Zen Buddhism are still recognized by the academic world, especially his collection and organization of the literature of Shenhui, and his analysis of the status of Shenhui and Heze Sect in the History of Zen Buddhism, and so on. The most important significance of Hu Shih’s methodology for History of Zen Buddhism lies in the new research paradigm he initiated. Hu Shih preached the “History of Zen Buddhism” and created a new trend in the methodology of study. In that era of social change, Hu Shih had a great ambition to push everything forward, which was also very evident in his study of the History of Zen Buddhism. All in all, the positive significance of Hu Shi’s methodology for the History of Zen Buddhism is still worth affirming.
Hu Shih, a central figure in modern Chinese academic and intellectual history, has made pioneering contributions to many fields of study throughout his life, including the study of the history of Zen Buddhism, which was one of the most diligent fields of study in his academic career. Among them, the study of the History of Zen Buddhism is one of the fields in which Hu Shi made the most efforts and lasted the longest in his academic career. From 1919 to 1962, Hu Shi’s research on the History of Zen Buddhism lasted for more than 40 years, which involved the examination of the historical facts of the early stage of Zen Buddhism, the origins and development of Zen Buddhism, as well as the discovery and organization of historical materials of the History of Zen Buddhism, etc. Not only clarified some basic historical facts of the first introduction of Buddhism into China, but also made some basic historical facts of the first introduction of Buddhism into China, and also made some basic historical facts of the first introduction of Buddhism into China. He not only clarified some of the basic historical facts about the first introduction of Buddhism into China, but also made in-depth examinations and insightful analyses of the genealogy of Zen Buddhism, the legend of Bodhidharma, the existence of the Lankavatara Sect, as well as the historical status and role of Shenhui. In particular, the method he advocated and used to conduct empirical research on Zen Buddhism using Dunhuang documents broke the traditional narrative mode of “History of Zen Buddhism” and created a new paradigm for modern research on the history of Zen Buddhism.
The formation of one’s cultural values has a significant relationship with one’s family genetics and the education and environmental influences one receives during childhood. Although Hu Shih’s father did not receive modern scientific education, he was deeply influenced by the naturalistic cosmology of Cheng-Zhu rationalism. Hu Shih became an atheist in his adolescence because of his education in Cheng-Zhu rationalism. Later, he accepted the influence of Fan Jian’s “Theory of God’s Destruction” and became a firm anti-theist after studying abroad.
Hu Shih’s study of the History of Zen Buddhism began in 1923-1924 when he expressed skepticism about the “History of Zen Buddhism” and the genealogy of Zen Buddhism from Bodhidharma to the Sixth Patriarch Huineng. It was only because he “could not believe in the veracity of this tradition” that he became interested in a monk named Shenhui, and this was the beginning of what would become a highly influential research project on the History of Zen Buddhism by Hu Shi. The unadorned view suggests that the study of Buddhism is different from other studies, and that to conference Buddhism before one has come to believe in it can easily lead to the defamation of Buddhism. The question of whether the study of religion should adopt a rationalist approach and how the study of religion should deal with the relationship between religion’s sacredness and modernity is addressed here. This was Hu Shi’s first encounter with the convergence of the Buddhist community, and can also be said to be the prelude to Hu Shi’s discussion of Zen Buddhism with the Japanese Suzuki Daikou, and an opportunity for the formation of Hu Shi’s cultural view of the History of Zen Buddhism.
Zen studies occupy an important position in Hu Shi’s entire academic system, and methods and materials are the most concerned part of his Zen studies. Regarding method, he himself once said, “My various writings on Chinese thought and Chinese history all revolve around the idea of ‘method’. ‘Method’ has really dominated all my writings for more than forty years.”With regard to materials, he also pointed out in his Autobiography that the first problem he faced in his study was the “selection of materials”. Therefore, the following is an attempt to examine Hu Shih’s Zen studies in terms of both method and material in response to the cultural viewpoint.
Methodologically, Western learning is used to examine secondary schools. Hu Shi called his method “bold assumptions, careful proof”, a method of study from Dewey’s book “Thinking Techniques” on “systematic thought”. According to the book, “systematic thought” usually passes through five stages: first, the stage of perplexity and doubt, which leads to serious thinking; second, deciding where the doubt lies; third, making assumptions about the solution of the problem; fourth, choosing the method of solving the doubt; and fifth, proving, that is, putting the “bold assumptions” to “careful” proof in order to solve the doubt. The fifth is proof, i.e., the “careful” demonstration of the “bold hypothesis” in order to resolve the doubt.
The collection and selection of historical materials should have a globalized vision and an anti-traditional tendency. Hu Shi’s collection of materials breaks through the traditional vision of collection. Hu Shi believed that the western materials are richer and more complete. In the specific research process, Hu Shi emphasized the academic value of new historical materials, which were often the most important basis for his views. Therefore, Hu Shi studied the traditional historical materials that he considered credible while expanding his own horizons of collecting historical materials.
Hu Shi often boasted that he wanted to be “objectively judged,” but he often presented himself as an extreme layman. He had an extremely effective research methodology - the experimental method of bold assumptions and careful proof - but his proofs often seemed not to be careful at all. Therefore, it is too difficult to judge Hu Shi’s Zen studies if one wants to draw a conclusion about whether they are good or bad. Hu Shih’s views on Zen are often ambiguous. Because of his modern Enlightenment philosophy, he believed that he should oppose all forms of religion, regardless of their cause. However, Zen Buddhism has a Chinese aspect among all Buddhist sects, and it is a significant contributor to the fight against Indianization. Therefore, Hu Shi greatly praised Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the spirit of nationalism. But when it came to his attitude towards religion, Hu Shi preferred the humanistic aspect of traditional Chinese culture and often criticised Zen Buddhism.
But Hu Shi did usher in a new era. If we are to trace the study of Zen history in the sense of modern academic history, we cannot but say that Hu Shih has created a model for the study. Whether it is the discovery of new materials, the formulation of new problems in the history of Zen, or the discussion of the methodology of Zen, it all began with Hu Shi. When we look at the important Zen researchers after Hu Shi, whether it is Yin Shun or Lü Li, as well as other writers of the history of Chinese philosophy who could not bypass the issue of Zen, such as Feng Youlan, Hou Weilu, and Fan Wenlan, and even Ren Jiyu, who criticized Hu Shi and ascended to the academic arena, all of them could not get away from Hu Shi’s paradigm. Therefore, Hu Shih, “not as a teacher but as a pioneer,” truly brought into the realm of Zen a rational approach adapted to the requirements of modernity, prompting Zen to step down from the altar of mystery, superstition, and ineffability, and to strive to realize a modern transformation in a certain important aspect.
Although Hu Shi himself was an atheist, he had his own opinions, understanding and tolerance as far as religion was concerned. Hu Shi was understanding and sympathetic to religious people because, in his view, society could tolerate his non-belief in God’s ideas, and in return, he was tolerant and understanding of God-believers. In addition, in terms of culture, among Hu Shih’s many related works, a masterpiece “Our Attitude towards Modern Western Civilization” can be regarded as an ideal historical material, which can not only fully reflect Hu Shih’s new cultural outlook, but also allow us to reproduce the logical relationship between his new cultural outlook and the study of religious issues, especially why he used “new culture” to replace “old religion”.
According to Hu Shi, when he wanted to fight for freedom, he thought of the freedom of others, so not only must freedom be limited to not infringing on the freedom of others, but he also went further to ask for the freedom of the vast majority of people. In order to enjoy happiness, we think of the happiness of human beings, so we put forward the criterion of “the greatest happiness of the greatest number” as the purpose of human society, and this is the trend of “socialization”. Therefore, we think that whether it is “rationalization,” “humanization,” or “socialization,” they all show the scientific, humane, and practical nature of Hu Shi’s religious thought, which is also a microcosm of our modern mainstream thought. These are also a representation of our current mainstream thinking.
As an important representative of the “May Fourth” thinkers, Hu Shi studied and pondered the issue of religion and Chinese beliefs. His rejection of religious beliefs began with the relationship between heaven and man, the theoretical core of religion. His interpretation of the naturalistic view of heaven in the Chinese intellectual tradition reveals the reasons for the rise and fall of Buddhism in China. It shows that in dealing with the relationship between heaven and humanity, the ancient Chinese people had the ideological tradition of abandoning God and humanity, thus laying the ideological foundation for his later rejection of Buddhism and Christianity as China’s modern religious beliefs, and his proposal of abandoning the heavenly kingdom of the immortals and establishing a “humanized” world. Based on CNKI data, this chapter explores the current literature on Hu Shih’s History of Zen Buddhism through bibliometrics and social network analysis, in order to provide useful ideological reference for the establishment of modern scientific spirituality.
CNKI is an important part of China Knowledge Resource Database, which is one of the largest digital libraries and online academic databases in China. CNKI is an important resource in China’s academic field, which provides researchers and students with convenient and fast academic literature search and information service, and is of great significance to promote the development of China’s academic research. CNKI is the database with the largest number of journals and most comprehensive range of literature resources and information in the field of specialty. CNKI is currently the most comprehensive literature resource information database with the largest number of journals and the most comprehensive scope of specialized fields, especially the key journals and master and doctoral dissertations, which reflect the current high level of academic standards. Therefore, CNKI is the main source of data for this study.
In the CNKI database, the time of entry is limited to 1955-2024, and then the subject of the literature is limited to “Hu Shi” and “Zen”, and the sources of the journals are limited to core journals, general journals, and master’s and doctoral dissertations on the related subjects included in CNKI. The sources of journals are limited to core journals, general journals listed in CNKI, as well as master and doctoral dissertations on related topics. In addition, this paper also extensively searched the Wanfang database for journal articles related to Hu Shi’s History of Zen Buddhism. Then all the literature and information materials obtained were initially screened, and the invalid information and materials interspersed in the search results were secondly cleaned and eliminated, and finally all the valid paper data obtained were the literature data samples for this study.
The main research software used in this study is the Citespace software with visualization features, which is one of the best research software in the field of bibliometrics using the Java platform. Citespace is a very practical visual research analysis software mainly used for the study of co-citation networks. Citespace can analyze the current research progress in a certain professional field Citespace can analyze the current research progress and current research frontiers in a certain specialized field, as well as the corresponding research methodology, which is a kind of application for tracking and data analysis of global frontier issues.
Bibliometric method
Bibliometrics is mainly a quantitative research method, which relies on the support of mathematics and statistics in the development and research process. After measuring and analyzing, qualitative research such as classification, induction, comparison, and other qualitative research are conducted to determine the sublimation of the theme. The aim of bibliometric research is to analyze the external characteristics of textual materials, including data collection, organization, modeling, and other methods. [19] Through statistical tools to analyze the external features to output quantitative data, the phenomena and curves presented in the information flow can be summarized. The use of bibliometric methods generally involves the following steps:
Step1 According to the research needs, formulate the research objectives and define the problems to be solved. Step2 Select databases for data retrieval and collection, choose analytical tools, and determine the object of analysis. Step3 Establish the analysis model, perform statistical analysis on the acquired data, and output quantitative indicators. Step4 Verify the analysis results and summarize the prediction for the research objectives.
Social Network Theory
Social network specifically refers to a relatively solid system of relationships between individual members of society, resulting from interactions, with a central focus on interactions and connections between individuals and how these connections affect people’s social behavior. The causal social network analysis (SNA) is an approach to the study of social relationships and structures that focuses on analyzing the internal networks among social actors [20]. Developed by sociologists based on mathematical methods, graph theory, and other theoretical tools, the method aims to reveal hidden patterns, dynamics, and influences in social networks through quantitative analysis. In network analysis, centrality is a significant factor that aids in exploring the network structure and the significance of nodes. Centrality mainly includes degree centrality, median centrality, and centripetal centrality.
Degree centrality refers to the number of edges that are directly connected to a particular node. In a directed network, the degree centrality of a single node is obtained by adding its in-degree centrality and out-degree centrality. It is denoted as:
Where,
The meso-centricity degree is a measure of the degree to which a node has the shortest path to connect other nodes in the network, then:
Where
Centripetal centrality is a measure of how close a node is to other nodes in the network. Then:
Where,
Nodes with high centripetal centrality have greater control in the network because they are able to influence other nodes in the network more quickly. On the contrary, nodes with low centripetal centrality have less control in the network and these nodes have less influence on the overall structure and operation of the network.
In order to deeply analyze the hot topics and cutting-edge themes in the field of research on the History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shi from 1955 to 2024, it is necessary to first sort out and summarize the current status of research in the field of research on the History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shi in this time period, and depict the overall trend of research on the History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shi in the environment of the times. Changes in the number of publications is an important indicator to measure the development trend of a research topic in a specific time period, which can reflect the overall development trend of the research field as well as the development status in different periods, and is of great significance in analyzing the development dynamics and predicting the future trend. In this paper, 288 documents in the field of History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shi retrieved from 1955 to 2024 are statistically analyzed, so that the distribution trend of the number of publications in the field of History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shi between 1955 and 2024 is shown in Figure 1.
The distribution of the history of Hushi’s research field in 1955~ 2024
On the whole, the number of publications on the History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shi increased steadily from 1955 to 2024, with an overall trend of fluctuating upward and downward. By analyzing the number of articles published in each year, it can be seen that the number of articles published on the History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shih was only one in 1955, and the number of articles fluctuated little in the following 10 years, and the number of articles published in 1971 increased 10 times compared with that of 1955, and the number of articles published on the History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shih was 11. In the following 40 years, the number of journal articles published on Hu Shi’s History of Zen Buddhism showed a sharp decline, with the number of articles fluctuating from 1 to 8. A rapid upward trend has been observed since 2015, with its number of publications increasing from 14 to 27 in 2017, and then slowly decreasing to 1 in 2024. The number of journal paper publications related to the study of the History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shih from 1972 to 2014 was relatively stable, with a small overall fluctuation range, and the research heat increased during the period of 2015-2021, with the increase in the number of publications.
Further analysis reveals that there was a large increase in the number of articles on the History of Zen Buddhism in 1971 because it was the 10th anniversary of Mr. Hu Shih’s death, and related scholars wrote articles to study Hu Shih’s thoughts and academic achievements related to the History of Zen Buddhism, which made the study of the relevant History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shih become an instantly hot topic, and increased the amount of journal articles issued in that year. The number of Hu Shi History of Zen Buddhism journal paper publications reached a peak of 27 in 2017, an increase of more than 42.11% year-on-year, and the number of publications from 2018 to 2021 is also maintained at a high level. Through combing through the literature, we can see that in these years, in addition to maintaining the research fervor of the previous years, the number of journal articles on the positioning and popularization of the History of Zen Buddhism has increased substantially, and this phenomenon reflects to a certain extent the guiding role of the Hu Shi History of Zen Buddhism Symposium in the direction of the field of the History of Zen Buddhism. However, with the transition and withdrawal of the old generation of academic researchers on the History of Zen Buddhism, the enthusiasm of the new generation of researchers on the History of Zen Buddhism has gradually faded, and in recent years, there have been few new breakthroughs in the research on the History of Zen Buddhism, and the number of papers published has also been slowly decreasing.
The collected data of Hu Shi History of Zen Buddhism related journal papers, combined with the mutation detection function of Citespace software, we obtained the trend of the co-occurrence network of Hu Shi History of Zen Buddhism research with the number of highlighted keywords of 10 as shown in Table 1. As can be seen from the table, in terms of the duration of emergence, the duration of emergence of “History of Zen Buddhism” and “Hu Shi” are both 69 years, and the intensity of emergence of both is 3.428 and 3.319 respectively. “History of Zen Buddhism” and “Hu Shi” are the keywords with the longest and relatively high intensity of emergence in the field of Hu Shih’s Zen history research, which indicates that “Zen history” has not only received continuous research and attention from scholars, but also shows that the history of Zen Buddhism is an indispensable key word in the field of exploring the research field of Hu Shih’s Zen history. The time spans for “Bodhidharma,”“Zen lineage,” and “Buddhism” are 39, 24, and 28 years, respectively. The long duration of the emergence of these keywords indicates that the number of research results related to them has been growing over a longer time period. In terms of the time period of change, between 1955 and 2024, History of Zen Buddhism was the leading trend in the research field of History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shi. After entering the 21st century, “Tanjing”, “Buddhism”, “Bodhidharma”, “Chinese Zen Studies”, “Zen Lineage”, “Ranga Sutra” and “Shenhui Monk” have become the cutting-edge trends in the field of Hu Shih’s research on the history of Zen Buddhism. Due to policy reasons, the state has been paying more and more attention to the rescue, protection, development and utilization of religious antiquities, which has led to the cutting-edge trend in the study of the History of Zen Buddhism by Hu Shi from macro-level historical research to micro-level research on specific textual literature. After 2015, the literature of writings such as “Tanjing” and “Lenga Sutra” began to become a cutting-edge trend in the field of research on the History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shih, and ancient books related to the History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shih have received attention from scholars.
Research hotspot of Abrupt value
| Keywords | Year | Strength | Begin | End | Time span |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zen history | 1955 | 3.428 | 1955 | 2024 | 69 |
| Hushi | 1955 | 3.319 | 1955 | 2024 | 69 |
| Shenhui monk | 1955 | 2.538 | 1967 | 1998 | 31 |
| Master of Heze | 1955 | 1.923 | 1993 | 2002 | 9 |
| Lenna | 1955 | 1.741 | 2014 | 2017 | 3 |
| Altar | 1955 | 1.652 | 2016 | 2023 | 7 |
| PutiDamo | 1955 | 1.567 | 1955 | 1994 | 39 |
| Zen lineage | 1955 | 1.534 | 1982 | 2006 | 24 |
| Chinese zen | 1955 | 1.465 | 1997 | 2015 | 18 |
| Buddhism | 1955 | 1.348 | 1988 | 2016 | 28 |
To summarize, in the past 70 years, research in the field of History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shih has shown different characteristics at different times. At the same time, the research hotspot in the field of History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shi has a big change, that is, from the macro level of history to the micro level of specific text content research. From the termination time of keyword emergence, it can be seen that in the past 10 years, the focus of academic attention in the research field of History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shi is the History of Zen Buddhism, Tanjing, Lengjia Sutra, Zen lineage, and Zen literature in China, among which the History of Zen Buddhism is still in the state of emergence in the year of 2022, which is still the main trend of the current research. Therefore, more attention should be paid to aspects such as the literature related to the History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shi in the research related issues, as a way to produce research results related to the trend of academic frontiers.
The data of 288 documents related to the research field of Hu Shi History of Zen Buddhism between 1955-2024 were imported into Citespace, the node type was selected as keywords, and TopN% was set to 100%, indicating that all nodes that satisfy the conditions were extracted. Then set the time slice to 4, indicating 4 years as a time period, and keep the other settings as default for the time being. After statistics through the software, the top 20 keywords in terms of word frequency can be obtained as shown in Table 2. The frequency in the table indicates the total number of occurrences of the keyword, while the year indicates the year of the first occurrence of the keyword. Since the statistics of this study are sample data from 1955 to 2024, the actual frequency and year cannot be reflected quite accurately.
High frequency keywords
| Count | Keywords | Year | Count | Keywords | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 682 | Zen history | 1955 | 98 | Zen origin | 1955 |
| 423 | Hushi | 1955 | 93 | Sixth altar | 1955 |
| 368 | Shenhui monk | 1956 | 82 | Nanyang monk | 1956 |
| 294 | Master of Heze | 1958 | 69 | God’s sayings | 1962 |
| 226 | Lenna | 1962 | 57 | Circular sensation | 1961 |
| 201 | Altar | 1955 | 33 | South chung | 1958 |
| 185 | PutiDamo | 1958 | 28 | Zen public case | 1956 |
| 171 | Zen lineage | 1961 | 21 | Chinese philosophy | 1955 |
| 157 | Chinese zen | 1957 | 16 | Five lights | 1957 |
| 138 | Buddhism | 1956 | 12 | Lingmudazhuo | 1955 |
As can be seen from the table, the term “History of Zen Buddhism” clearly outranks the other keywords, with a word frequency of 682, which corresponds very well to the research theme of this study. The next in the list are Hu Shi (423), Monk Shen Hui (368), Master Lotus (294), Lengjia Sutra (226), and Tanjing (201), all of which have more than 200 occurrences. This indicates that the History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shih discusses more about Hu Shih’s research on the history of Zen Buddhism under the influence of Monk Shenhui, Master Hoze, etc., and his skeptical attitude towards the Lankavatara Sutra, Tanjing, and other Zen literature through proofreading and other methods, and there is a fairly high correlation between multiple keywords. In this table there are also four other research contents of the History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shi that should not be neglected, namely, Bodhidharma, Zen lineage, Chinese Zen and Buddhism, whose word frequencies are all more than 120 times, which to a certain extent can indicate that these four keywords have a high impact on exploring the origin, creation and development of the History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shi, and that the later generations of the study of the History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shi pay more attention to it and possess the activity of the relevant scientific researches.
Keyword clustering is to cluster closely related keywords into one class, which is used to observe the research class clusters formed in the current research field. The parameter settings are consistent with the operation of keyword co-occurrence, except that it is necessary to select Find Clusters and then Label Clusters with Indexing Terms after the run is completed, and the clustering labels are extracted by the LLR algorithm and adjusted to generate the plots as shown in Figure 2. After forming the clusters, it is generally accepted that Modularity Q>0.25 means that the clustering structure is significant, Mean Silhouette>0.6 clustering is reasonable, and >0.8 means that the clustering is convincing. As can be seen from the upper left corner of the plot, the values of Q and S are 0.853 and 0.912 respectively, which meet the criteria for each value, indicating that the clustering structure is significant and the clustering is convincing.
Keyword cluster map
Each cluster has a label, closely related keywords are clustered together one by one by a specific algorithm, and each keyword is assigned a value, the class is represented by the largest value in the same cluster, and the clustering label is thus generated. There are 14 irregular regions in the figure, each of which corresponds to a label, indicating that the keyword clusters are clustered together into 14 classes. They are #1 History of Zen Buddhism, #2 Hu Shi, #3 Monk Shenhui, #4 Master Hoze, #5 Lankavatara Sutra, #6 Tantan Sutra, #7 Bodhidharma, #8 Zen Lineage, #9 Chinese Zen Studies, #10 Buddhism, #11 Origins of Zen, #12 Sixth Patriarch Altar Sutra, #13 Nanyang Monk, and #14 Quotations from Shenhui.
The distribution of the number of articles and the clustering of hot keywords in the previous article can initially reflect the status quo of research in the field of History of Zen Buddhism, which takes the History of Zen Buddhism as the main threshold and is accompanied by a diversity of perspectives and crossover research. However, the answer to the question of whether the academic field of Hu Shi History of Zen Buddhism has been characterized by diverse perspectives from its birth, or whether the development of the academic field has shown more and more obvious characteristics of diverse perspectives is still unclear. Therefore, this paper analyzes the social semantic network based on keywords in different time periods. Table 3 shows the units of the stages of social semantic network analysis of Hu Shi’s History of Zen Buddhism study.
Social semantic network analysis stage unit situation
| Year | Number | Network node number | Network number | Network average center degree |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1955~1960 | 13 | 2363 | 2338 | 1.953 |
| 1961~1970 | 44 | 2381 | 2356 | 1.824 |
| 1971~1980 | 38 | 2293 | 2066 | 1.768 |
| 1981~1990 | 15 | 2352 | 2257 | 1.831 |
| 1991~2000 | 19 | 2403 | 2303 | 1.847 |
| 2001~2010 | 16 | 2416 | 2318 | 1.852 |
| 2011~2020 | 123 | 2358 | 2192 | 1.745 |
| 2021~2024 | 20 | 2381 | 2324 | 1.729 |
The results show that these eight networks are roughly similar in size, with the number of nodes and the number of edges remaining around 2300~2400. Since the networks are similar in size, the degree of closeness between their internal keywords, i.e., the degree of aggregation of research perspectives, can be effectively measured by the index of network average centrality. A network with higher average network centrality indicates a better degree of aggregation between nodes within the network, i.e., the more nodes in the network tend to present the same perspective and background, and vice versa, the more diversified the research perspectives and backgrounds tend to be. Between 1955 and 2024, the average centrality of the social semantic network in the field of the History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shi declined significantly over time, from 1.953 to 1.729, which indicates that the research related to the History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shi showed more and more diversified research perspectives, focuses, and academic backgrounds over time. In addition to measuring average network centrality, modularity analysis using uniform resolution can also be used to study the aggregation and diversification dynamics of social semantic networks. The more clusters obtained from modularity analysis under uniform resolution, the worse the internal coupling of the network, i.e., the more diversified the topics within the social semantic network, and vice versa, the more aggregated the topics. Over time, the number of modularized clusters obtained from the social semantic network in the field of History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shi increased significantly under the uniform resolution, i.e., it is consistent with the results of the analysis of the average centrality of the network.
On the basis of analyzing Hu Shih’s cultural view of the History of Zen Buddhism, the article uses bibliometrics and social network analysis to explore the trend of Hu Shih’s research on the history of Zen Buddhism in modern times. The number of articles published in the field of Hu Shih’s History of Zen Buddhism research increased steadily between 1955 and 2024, with an overall fluctuating upward and downward trend. The duration of the keywords “History of Zen Buddhism” and “Hu Shi” is 69 years, and their intensity of emergence is 3.428 and 3.319 respectively. The keywords in the research field of History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shi were clustered into 14 categories by keyword clustering, and each category represents the hot research changes of History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shi. Combining the keyword clustering and social network analysis, the network average centrality value in the research field of History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shih shows a stable decreasing trend between 1955 and 2024. This fully demonstrates that the current research on the History of Zen Buddhism of Hu Shih has gradually shown a diversified trend, which provides reliable data support for exploring the research hotspots of Hu Shih and the creation of the modern “History of Zen Buddhism” research.