Fang Yizhi

Life

Fang Yizhi belonged to the Fang clan of Tongcheng. His great-grandfather was Fang Xuejian, his grandfather Fang Dazhen, and his father Fang Kongzhao. Fang Dazhen served as vice minister of the Court of Judicial Review in the Wanli period, studied the Yijing and the Liji, and was a prolific author; Fang Kongzhao passed the jinshi examination in 1616 and rose to grand coordinator of Huguang under the Chongzhen emperor. His mother was Wu Lingyi, his maternal aunt Wu Lingze, his paternal aunts included Fang Weiyi, Fang Weize and Fang Mengshi, and his sons were Fang Zhongtong and Fang Zhonglü.

A precocious child, he knew literature at the age of six and read widely, and as a young man he was a noted member of the Restoration Society (Fushe). He accompanied his father on official journeys to Jiading in Sichuan, Funing in Fujian, Zhili and Yanjing, where he saw famous mountains and rivers, came to know the Western missionaries Francesco Sambiasi (Bi Fangji) and Johann Adam Schall von Bell (Tang Ruowang), and read Western books. With Mao Xiang, Hou Fangyu and Chen Zhenhui he was known as one of the "Four Young Gentlemen of the Late Ming", and he also associated with Ruan Zihua, Yu Yizheng, Wei Xi, Zhu Tianlin, Li Wen, Zhang Zilie, Cheng Yuan, Shen Shoumin, Chen Zilong and Qian Qianyi. In 1634, when disorder broke out in Tongcheng, his father stayed behind to hold the town while Fang Yizhi and his family took refuge in Nanjing.

In 1639 he passed the provincial examination in Nanjing, and in 1640 he passed the jinshi examination, taking the 54th place in the second class, and was appointed an editor of the Hanlin Academy. He was selected as a bachelor (shujishi), served as compiler and as lecturer to the heir apparent, and also held a term of probation in the Ministry of Works. After Li Zicheng entered Beijing, Fang was severely tortured; when Li's forces were defeated at Shanhaiguan, he escaped to the south in the confusion.

Under the Hongguang court he was maligned by Ma Shiying and Ruan Dacheng, fled to the southern coast, and supported himself by selling medicine. Under the Yongli court he served as left zhongyun and was impeached; he was appointed classics lecturer and was removed from office over a case of forged documents; in 1654 he was further appointed to the Hanlin Academy and to the posts of vice minister of rites and grand secretary of the Eastern Hall. He later took part in resistance activities against the Qing and, after their defeat, became a monk and changed his name. After Qing forces entered Guangdong he took the tonsure at Wuzhou; another account says that after the fall of the Ming he entered monastic life at Zhaohu Jiongshan, taking the name Hongzhi and the sobriquet Yaodi. In 1653 he received full ordination from the Chan master Juelang Daosheng and became his dharma heir, and he presided over the monasteries of Tianjie in Jinling, Shouchang in Xincheng and Qingyuan in Jizhou; his own dharma heirs included the Chan master Shanzu Xingfu.

In his last years, accused in the "Yue case", he was escorted north by the Qing authorities, imprisoned at Nanchang and then taken to Guangdong for trial; on the seventh day of the tenth month he reached the Huangkong shoal at Wan'an in Jiangxi and, recalling the fate of Wen Tianxiang at the end of the Song dynasty, drowned himself in the river; one account says he died in seated meditation.

Scholarship and works

Fang Yizhi was a man of wide learning who inquired into the essentials of ritual and music, pitch and number, phonetics, writing, calligraphy and painting, medicine and divination, and was especially versed in science and philosophy; he stressed "zhi ce" (the measurement of things), that is, experiment, and, familiar with Western scientific knowledge of his time, was sharply critical of theology. He was also skilled in poetry and prose, in calligraphy and drama, and versed in philology and evidential scholarship.

He wrote more than a hundred works; the best known are the Tongya in 52 juan and the Wuli Xiaoshi in 12 juan, while among his other works are the Yaodi Paozhuang, Dongxi Jun, Fushan Ji, Yiyu, Zhouyi Tuxiang Jibiao and Xiyu Xinbi, and among his Buddhist writings is the Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Yuzhe Zhi.