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Daoxuan
Daoxuan (596-667)
Daoxuan (596–667) was one of the most versatile and prolific Chinese monks of the medieval period. Son of a prominent official, he became a monk at an early age and soon earned a reputation for erudition and industry. Although sources disagree on Daoxuan’s place of origin, he lived for most of his adult life in or near the Tang capital at Chang’an, where he worked for a brief period at the translation center of the great translator Xuanzang (ca. 600–664) and served as abbot of Ximing Monastery. Daoxuan’s writings include a catalog of Buddhist texts, various historical works, numerous works on the monastic regulations, and records of his visionary encounters with divine beings.
Daoxuan’s most influential historical works are a large compilation of accounts of monks titled Xu gaoseng zhuan (Further Biographies of Eminent Monks) and Guang hongming ji (Expanded Collection of the Propagation of Light), a collection of documents by more than 130 authors relating for the most part to debates between Buddhists and their detractors at court. Daoxuan’s most important work on the monas- tic regulations, Sifenlü shanfan buque xingshichao (Notes on Conduct: Abridgements and Emendations to the Four-Part Regulations), attempts to provide a hand- book for monastic practice based on the Dharmagup- takavinaya (Chinese, Sifen lü).
Various legends circulated about Daoxuan’s life, the most famous of which were that a spirit placed a tooth of the Buddha in his protection and that he was the reincarnation of the sixth-century monk Sengyou.
(John Kieschnick in Buswell 2004)