明代三一敎敎義析論

Abstract

Lin Chao-en, who was born in a family with a strong Neo-Confucian background, was the founder of San-yi Jiao in the Ming Dynasty. He was an influential figure in his time and now almost totally forgotten. As Lin Chao-en spent his entire life in attempting to unify the Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism by arguing that there is no real diversity among the three teachings, his philosophy appears to be stressing more on the syncretization of Confucianism and Taoism. This thesis states an analysis of Lin Chao-en’s philosophy by a critical approach. The first chapter of this thesis gives a brief biography of Lin Chao-en, an outline of his philosophy, as well as an analysis on the origin of his philosophy and the values of the collections of his works. The second chapter is an analysis that focuses on Lin Chao-en’s philosophy itself. The third chapter is an attempt to figure out the cause of why an influential figure such as Lin Chao-en would be ignored and to put him back to an appropriate position in the history of religion and philosophy. The fourth chapter is a comparison between San-yi Jiao and Jing-ming Dao.

Date of Award	2008
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology