Daosheng (; c. 360–434), or Zhu Daosheng (), was an eminent Six Dynasties era Chinese Buddhism scholar. He is known for advocating the concepts of subitism and the universality of the Buddha nature.
Life
Born in
Pengcheng, Daosheng left home to become a monk at eleven. He studied in
Jiankang under
Zhu Fatai, and later at
Mount Lu (Mount Lu) monastery with Huiyuan, and from 405 or 406 under
Kumarajiva in Chang'an, where he stayed for some two years perfecting his education. He became one of the foremost scholars of his time, counted among the "fifteen great disciples" of Kumarajiva.
Sengzhao reports that Daosheng assisted Kumarajiva in his translation of the Lotus Sutra, Daosheng wrote commentaries on the Lotus Sutra, the Vimalakirti-nirdesa Sutra and the Astasahasrika-prajnaparamita Sutra (the last of which has been lost). In 408, he returned to Lushan, and in 409 back to Jiankang, where he remained for some twenty years, staying at the Qingyuan Monastery (青园寺) from 419.
Teachings
Daosheng controversially ascribed
Buddha-nature to the
icchantikas, based on his reading on a short version of the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, which in that short form appears to deny the Buddha-nature to icchantikas; the long version of the
Nirvana Sutra, however (not yet known to Daosheng), explicitly includes the icchantikas in the universality of the Buddha-nature. Daosheng's bold doctrine of including icchantikas within the purview of the Buddha-nature, even before that explicit teaching had actually been found in the long
Nirvana Sutra, led to the expulsion of Daosheng from the Buddhist community in 428 or 429, and he retreated to Lushan in 430.
With the availability of the long Nirvana Sutra after 430, through the translation of Dharmakshema, Daosheng was vindicated and praised for his insight. He remained in Lushan, composing his commentary on the Lotus Sutra in 432, until his death in 434.
Daosheng's exegesis of the Nirvana Sutra had an enormous influence on interpretations of the Buddha-nature in Chinese Buddhism that prepared the ground for the Chán school emerging in the 6th century.
Sources
Bibliography
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Liebenthal, Walter (1955). A Biography of Chu Tao-Sheng, Monumenta Nipponica 11 (3), 284-316
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Shi Huijiao, Yang, Tianshu, transl. Ross, Edward A. S. editor (2022). ' The Biographies of Eminent Monks'. Hong Kong: Centre of Buddhist Studies, University of Hong Kong. pp. 284-289, ISBN 978-988-76424-2-8
