Shandao
613 CE–681 CE · Chang'an (Xi'an)
613–681 CE
Shandao (613–681 CE) was the great systematizer of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism and, in the later tradition's reckoning, one of its founding patriarchs. Active in Tang-dynasty Chang'an, he centered the path on faith in the Buddha Amitābha and the recitation of his name (nianfo), reading the Contemplation Sūtra as opening rebirth in the Pure Land even to ordinary practitioners. His commentaries decisively shaped East Asian Pure Land thought and, carried to Japan, became the principal authority for Hōnen's Jōdo-shū and Shinran's Jōdo Shinshū. He is a securely historical figure, though the sources disagree on his birthplace (variously Anhui or Shandong).
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Chang'an (Xi'an)
What they did here
DOCUMENTED ROLE: taught in the Tang capital, where he propagated devotion to the Buddha Amitābha and the recitation of his name (nianfo) as a path to rebirth in the Pure Land, drawing a large lay following.
About Chang'an (Xi'an)
Chang'an, modern Xi'an in Shaanxi province, China, was the capital of the Sui and Tang dynasties and one of the great Buddhist translation and study centres of medieval East Asia. The translator Kumārajīva was brought there in 401 to head an imperial translation bureau; the pilgrim Xuanzang returned there from India to translate the texts he had gathered; and Kūkai studied esoteric Buddhism in the city before founding the Japanese Shingon school.
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Shandao’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Shandao’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Islamic world
Graeco-Roman world
Works
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