Clerics › Religious Figure
Shi Daoyuan
Northern Song Chan monk of the Fayan lineage whose Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp is the foundational Chan genealogy.
In a temple courtyard at dusk, a great bronze bell hangs at the right and incense smoke rises from a bronze urn; monks in orange robes and plainly dressed visitors walk toward a lamplit hall, lotus flowers bloom in a stone basin, and a gold prayer wheel stands at the left.
Also known as Daoyuan · Monk Daoyuan
Shi Daoyuan was a Northern Song Chan monk of the Fayan lineage and a dharma heir of National Teacher Deshao of Tiantai; little else is known of his life. In 1004 he presented his thirty-chapter Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp to Emperor Zhenzong, and after editing by Yang Yi it was admitted into the Buddhist canon. Recording the encounters and sayings of over 1,700 Chan masters, it became the first officially sanctioned Chan lamp record, and phrases such as 'cutting nails and slicing iron' appear in it.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; presented the Jingde Record in 1004 CE