Daoxuan


Daoxuan was the Chinese Buddhist monk and patriarch of the Vinaya school, who wrote both the Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks and Standard Design for Buddhist Temple Construction. In legends he is attributed with the transmission of the Buddha relic called Daoxuan's tooth, one of the four tooth relics enshrined in the capital of Chang'an during the Tang dynasty. He is said to have received the relic during a night visit from a divinity associated with Indra.
Daoxuan wrote five commentaries on the Vinaya known as the Five Great Works of Mount Zhongnan. He also was part of the translation team that assisted Xuanzang in translating sutras from Sanskrit into Chinese.
Doaxuan was also a noted and influential bibliographer. His catalogue of Buddhist scriptures 《大唐內典錄》 Catalogue of the Inner Canon of the Great Tang aka Nèidiǎn Catalog in 10 scrolls was commissioned by the Emperor Gaozong and completed in 664. The Nèidiǎn Catalog helped to define the shape of the Chinese Buddhist Canon in future years. Influenced by the apocalyptic Mo-fa or theory of the end of the Dharma, Doaxuan was particularly concerned to expose and denounce suspicious or fake sutras. He witnessed wholesale burning of texts suspected of being fake.. The Nèidiǎn Catalog is also notable for being the first bibliographical work to attribute the Heart Sutra to Xuánzàng who died the same year as the catalogue was completed.
Daoxuan is also noted for his admonishments to the Emperor Tang Gaozong for issuing an edict requiring monastics to bow before the emperor. His admonishments succeeded in the cancellation of that edict.