dynasty. This work was written along the lines of Chegwan’s
Sagyo ̆ngui, but whereas Chegwan presents the meditational
practices of the various Four Teachings apart from their doc-
trines, Zhixu stresses the close interrelation between teaching
and practice (meditation) in each of the Four Teachings.
Another short introductory work by Zhixu that is still
widely read in both China and Japan is the Fahua lunguan
(A Synopsis of the Lotus Sutra; Zokuzo ̄kyo ̄ 50). In this work
Zhixu adopted Zhiyi’s exegetical method and selected pas-
sages from Zhiyi’s Fahua xuanyi and Fahua wenju to illus-
trate the purport of the su ̄tra and its title. He also quotes
from these two works to illustrate the teaching of each of the
twenty-eight chapters of the Lotus Sutra.
Tiantai historiographical works. The Tiantai contri-
bution to Chinese Buddhism is not confined to doctrinal
works alone. Two major church histories, the Fozu tongji
(Comprehensive Record of the Buddha and the Patriarchs;
T. D. no. 2035) and the Shimen chengtong (Zokuzokyo 2.3.5),
bear the imprint of Tiantai thought.
The former, composed in 1269 by Zhipan, is a general
history of Buddhism in both India and China rendered from
the Tiantai point of view. In it are preserved biographies of
the Buddha and major patriarchal figures, chronologies of
Chinese and Indian church history, histories of rival orders,
Tiantai cosmology, accounts of church-state relations, mirac-
ulous tales, and the texts of important steles. The work con-
tains much material pertaining to the shanjiashanwai debates
of the Northern Song period, and is altogether notable for
the attention it accords the Pure Land tradition in China,
an account of which occupies a full three volumes.
The latter work, the Shimen chengtong, is in its present
form the work of the Southern Sung master Zongqian, who
rewrote the text from an earlier history, the Zongyuan lu. It
is modeled after secular Chinese historical writings. In its five
sections are chronicles of the Buddha and major Indian fig-
ures; sectarian lineages; monographs treating such topics as
popular customs, social welfare, monastery administration,
and so forth; biographies of lesser Tiantai masters; and re-
cords of other traditions.
LATER MASTERS. Although Zhiyi represents the lynchpin of
Chinese Tiantai, his work was carried on and developed by
a succession of later masters whose efforts ensured that
Tiantai remained one of the most influential and doctrinally
sophisticated traditions of East Asian Buddhism.
Guanding. Zhiyi’s successor as abbot and leader of the
Tiantai lineage was Guanding (561–632). A native of Zhan-
gan (Zhekyiang Province), Guanding entered the monastic
life at the age of six, particularly distinguishing himself in lit-
erary studies. He was fully ordained at the age of nineteen.
After the death of his ordination master Guanding left the
local monastery and went to the Xiuchan Si (later the chief
monastery of the Tiantai tradition) on Mount Tiantai, where
he met Zhiyi for the first time. It was here that he began his
study of the Tiantai meditational practices and doctrinal syn-
thesis established by Zhiyi.
In 583 Guanding accompanied Zhiyi to the Guangze
Si in Jinling; here he studied Zhiyi’s meditational teachings
and was certified as Zhiyi’s successor and permanent atten-
dant. In 614 Guanding completed his two-volume commen-
tary on the Maha ̄ya ̄na-parinirva ̄n:a Su ̄tra, his Daniepan jing
xuanyi, and the thirty-three volume comentary on this same
scriptures, his Daniepan jing shu. With the completion of
these works the Tiantai tradition now had complete com-
mentaries on the two most important scriptures in their lin-
eage, the Lotus Sutra and the Maha ̄ya ̄na-parinirva ̄n:a Su ̄tra,
whose doctrines, in the view of Zhiyi and Guanding, make
up the “perfect” or “round” teaching (yuanjiao). Guanding’s
biographer states that, owing to the civil disorder attendent
upon the collapse of the Sui, the five years it took him to
complete his commentaries were ones of extreme privation.
In his later years Guanding lived in the city of Kuaiji,
where he lectured on the Lotus Sutra. His biography records
that contemporary popular rhyme said that he “surpassed Fa-
lang, Huiji, Fayun and Sengyin,” the ranking scholar-monks
of his day. It was through the efforts of Guanding that the
monastery on Mount Tiantai began again to enjoy imperial
patronage; Guanding was also responsible for the transcrip-
tion and propagation of the major and minor works of Zhiyi,
thus ensuring their survival for later generations.
In addition to the works mentioned above, Guanding’s
extant corpus includes the Guanxin lun shu, a commentary
on Zhiyi’s Guanxin lun; the Sui Tiantai Dashi biezhuan, a
one-volume biography of Zhiyi and the primary source for
existing knowledge of his life and works; and the Guoqing
bailu.
Zhanran. Zhanran, counted as the ninth Tiantai patri-
arch, was born in 711 in Jingxi (present-day Giangsu Prov-
ince) to a family that had for generations produced Confu-
cian scholars and officials. His biography states that in his
youth he excelled in scholarship; at the age of sixteen he de-
veloped an interest in Buddhism and began to search out
teachers of the faith. His first recorded teacher was Fangyan,
who taught him the elements of zhiguan meditation. At the
age of seventeen he met Xuanlang (later to be counted as the
eighth patriarch of the Tiantai tradition), who, it is said, im-
mediately recognized the youth’s intelligence and taught him
both the doctrines and the meditation techniques of the
Tiantai tradition.
For the next twenty years Zhanran, still a layman, de-
voted himself to the study of Tiantai doctrines, finally be-
coming ordained in 748. After his ordination, Zhanran jour-
neyed to Kuaiji where he studied the monastic discipline
with the Vinaya master Tanyi (Kor., Tamil). Sometime
thereafter Zhanran gave a series of lectures on the Mohe zhig-
uan in the Kaiyuan Si in Wujun. Following the death of
Xuanlang in 754, Zhanran took upon himself the task of
propagating the Tiantai doctrines. This he did by writing
commentaries to the three major works of Zhiyi, polemics
against the Huayan, Yoga ̄ca ̄ra, and Chan systems, and short
manuals of meditational instruction. His voluminous writ-TIANTAI 9179