Clerics › Religious Figure
Huili
Tang monk and disciple of Xuanzang who wrote the first five juan of the Biography of the Tripitaka Master of Da Ci'en Monastery.
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 Huili (variant) · Shi Huili
Huili, originally named Zili and renamed Huili by Emperor Gaozong, was a native of Tianshui with the lay surname Zhao. Ordained at fifteen in 629, he joined Xuanzang's translation bureau and later served as rector of Ximing Monastery and abbot of Taiyuan Monastery. He wrote a five-juan account of Xuanzang's life; the Song Biographies of Eminent Monks says that, fearing it incomplete, he hid it in a cellar and had his disciples dig it out only as he was dying. In 688 the monk Yancong annotated and extended it to ten juan as the Biography of the Tripitaka Master of Da Ci'en Monastery, the principal source for Xuanzang's pilgrimage and translation work.
Life and times
Dates b. 615; death date unknown, before 688