13 Facts About Daoxuan

Daoxuan was an eminent Tang dynasty Chinese Buddhist monk.

Daoxuan is perhaps best known as the patriarch of the four-part Vinaya school.

Daoxuan wrote both the Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks and the Standard Design for Buddhist Temple Construction.

Daoxuan is said to have received the relic from Nezha, a divinity associated with Indra.

Daoxuan wrote five commentaries on the four-part Vinaya known as the Five Great Works of Mount Zhongnan.

Daoxuan was part of the translation team that assisted Xuanzang in translating sutras from Sanskrit into Chinese.

Daoxuan even witnessed the wholesale burning of texts suspected of being fake.

Daoxuan is noted for his admonishments to the Emperor Gaozong of the Tang for issuing an edict requiring that monastics bow before the emperor.

Daoxuan's work was important for the later Vinaya master Yuanzhao who revived the Vinaya School during the Song dynasty and wrote various commentaries on Daoxuan's key works.

However, because his family came from the south, culturally Daoxuan remained a southerner.

The difference between northerners and southerners would shape Daoxuan's who, according to Chen Huaiyu, put much stock in the cultural superiority of the south as he himself tried to develop Buddhism in the northern capital.

Zanning wrote that Daoxuan was intellectually precocious, reading broadly and capable of composing verse by the age of nine.

At the age of fifteen, as Daoxuan showed a fondness for Buddhist teaching and an aversion to worldly matters, he joined the monastic order.