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Holmes Welch (Shi Mo Hua) was a prominent American scholar of Chinese Buddhism and Daoism. He is considered one of the most important American scholars in the initial academic study of these disciplines. He taught at Harvard and held several important positions in US East-West relations. While traveling in China and Taiwan for his research of Chinese Buddhist practice, he met Chan Master Cai Cang (Tai-Ts'ang), the last abbot of the prominent Chinese Buddhist monastery Jin Shan. Master Cai Cang and Professor Welch became very close, culminating in Dharma transmission and the charge to establish an American lineage of Chan Buddhism. Professor Welch's only monastic student was Ryugen Fisher (Shi Shen Long).
