Buddhism as an Epistemological Resource: Xia Zengyou’s Reading History and the Reordering of Knowledge in Late Qing China

This article argues that the reconstruction of modern knowledge in late Qing China was not merely the result of the passive importation of Western disciplinary categories, nor simply the natural collapse of the traditional Sibu 四部 system. Focusing on Xia Zengyou 夏曾佑 (1863–1924), it shows how Buddhism, especially Mahayana Buddhist reading traditions and classificatory logic, functioned as an indigenous epistemological resource in the reordering of knowledge. Through an analysis of Xia’s personal reading lists and handwritten catalogues, including Shengping Suoxue 生平所學 and his Handwritten Catalogue of Collected Books 手抄藏書書目, this study demonstrates that Xia organized his books in the sequence of Buddhist works, newly translated Western works, and indigenous Chinese texts. This arrangement reversed the Confucian-centered hierarchy of the Sibu system, in which the jing 經 category occupied the privileged position. By comparing Xia’s classificatory practice with those of Shen Zengzhi 沈曾植 (1850–1922), Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929), Xu Weize 徐維則 (1867–1919), and Yang Renshan 楊仁山 (1837–1911), the article argues that Xia did not simply adopt Western systems of knowledge. Rather, he used Buddhist textual order, cross-sectarian Mahayana learning, and Buddhist epistemological assumptions to relativize classical authority, accommodate Western learning, and construct a new reading horizon. Buddhism in this case was not only a matter of personal faith or religious revival; it became a conceptual and classificatory tool through which modern knowledge could be made intelligible. The article therefore contributes to the study of religion and modernity by showing that the formation of modern Chinese knowledge was not a purely secular process, but a religiously mediated transformation.