Eastern Jin monk, born Jia, from Yanmen, who lived at Donglin Temple on Mount Lu for decades, wrote On Monks Not Bowing to Kings, and was later honoured as first patriarch of Pure Land Buddhism.
Mural guide
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.
Huiyuan, born into the Jia family, came from Yanmen (around modern Ningwu, Shanxi) and was born in 334. Trained first in the Confucian and Daoist classics, he became a monk after hearing Dao'an lecture on the Prajna sutras, and later settled at Donglin Temple on Mount Lu, becoming a leading figure of southern Buddhism. He wrote On Monks Not Bowing to Kings and exchanged questions with Kumarajiva, collected as the Dacheng Dayi Zhang; a poem from Donglin on Mount Lu is also attributed to him. Later tradition says he founded the White Lotus Society, and Pure Land Buddhism honours him as its first patriarch. He died in 416.
Took orders after hearing Dao'an on the Prajna, and lived at Donglin Temple
Eastern Jin
Huiyuan, surnamed Jia, was a native of Loufan County in Yanmen, Bingzhou (near present Ningwu in Shanxi). In his youth he studied Confucian and Daoist teaching, and after hearing Dao'an lecture on the Prajna sutra he resolved to leave home and became Dao'an's pupil. He later went to Mount Lu and, when Donglin Temple was built, moved into it, and Donglin Temple became the center of Buddhism in the south of that time.
Jin