Fan Zhěn (English spelling)

Japanese: 范縝 - はんしん（英語表記）Fàn Zhěn

A thinker who lived in the 5th to 6th centuries during the Southern Dynasties period in China. His birth and death years are unknown. He was from Nanxiang Maiyin (Henan Province). His pen name was Zizhen. When he debated with Xiao Ziliang, King of Jingling in Southern Qi, over the existence of cause and effect as taught in Buddhism, he published his Theory of the Extinction of the Gods. He argued that the soul disappears when the body disappears, and denied the existence of a soul after death that is responsible for cause and effect. Later, Emperor Wu of Liang, who worshipped Buddhism, mobilized monks and scholar-officials to launch an all-out attack on Theory of the Extinction of the Gods, but in modern China it is highly regarded as a materialistic atheistic ideology.

Source: Heibonsha World Encyclopedia, 2nd Edition Information

Japanese:

中国の南朝時代，5～6世紀に生きた思想家。生没年不詳。南郷舞陰(河南省)の人。字は子真。仏教が説く因果の有無をめぐって南斉の竟陵王蕭子良（しようしりよう）と議論した際，《神滅論》を発表。肉体の消滅とともに霊魂も消滅すると説き，因果をになう主体となるべき死後の霊魂の存在を否定した。その後，崇仏皇帝の梁の武帝は僧侶や士大夫を動員して《神滅論》の総攻撃を行わせたが，現代中国においては唯物主義的無神論思想としてきわめて評価が高い。

出典　株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典第２版について　情報

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