Clerics › Religious Figure
Huiyuan
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.
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 Huiyuan (variant character) · Shi Huiyuan · Huiyuan of Mount Lu
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.
Life and times
Dates 334 CE–416 CE