Tanluan

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Tanluan(476 - 542)

Chinese monk and putative patriarch of the Pure Land traditions of East Asia. He is said to have become a monk at an early age, after which he devoted himself to the study of the Mahāsaṃnipātasūtra. As his health deteriorated from his intensive studies, Tanluan is said to have resolved to search for a means of attaining immortality. During his search in the south of China, Tanluan purportedly met the Daoist master Tao Hongjing (455–536), who gave him ten rolls of scriptures of the Daoist perfected. Tanluan is then said to have visited Bodhiruci in Luoyang, from whom he received a copy of the Guan Wuliangshou jing [*Amitāyurdhyānasūtra]. Tanluan subsequently abandoned his initial quest for immortality in favor of the teachings of the buddha Amitābha’s pure land. He was later appointed abbot of the monasteries of Dayansi in Bingzhou (present-day Shaanxi province) and Xuanzhongsi in nearby Fenzhou. Tanluan is famous for his commentary on the Wuliangshou jing youpotishe yuansheng ji attributed to Vasubandhu. (Source: "Tanluan." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 893. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)


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  • Pure Land · religious affiliation