richard burroughs mather was born on november 11, 1913, in baoding, china, where his american parents were serving as protestant missionaries. he lived in china for his entire youth before going to the united states in the early 1930s to attend princeton university, where he graduated with a b.a. "summa cum laude" in 1935. even though he intended to return to china after his graduation, he was unable to do so due to the chaos of world war ii. instead, he entered the university of california, berkeley, as a graduate student, where he earned a ph.d. in chinese literature in 1949 with a dissertation entitled, "the doctrine of non-duality in the "vimalakīrtinirdeśa sūtra.""