ABSTRACT
A revered monk in the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317–420 CE), Hui Yuan 慧遠 was born into a family surnamed Jia 賈 in what is now Shanxi Province. In his youth he studied the Ruist and Taoist canons, and he was especially learned in the works of Laozi 老子 and Zhuangzi 莊子. At the age of twenty-one he became a monk under the tutelage of the Buddhist master Dao An 道安, specializing in the study of the immateriality of the self and the world. In the year 381 he went to what is now Jiangxi Province where 131 , for over thirty years until his death, he lived in seclusion in Donglin Monastery 東林寺 on Mount Lu. Like his mentor Dao An, Hui Yuan did not know Sanskrit, but he initiated the translation of a significant number of Buddhist sutras. He was an advocate of the Pure Land School of Hinayana Buddhism, and is considered the first patriarch of the school. He wrote a number of treatises on retribution, explaining the cause and effect relationship of moral actions that work themselves out in cycles of reincarnation. These ideas have a lasting influence on Chinese people even today. Hui Yuan once had a discussion with Kumārajīva 鳩摩羅什 about Buddhist doctrines. The dialogue was recorded and published as An Essay on the Meaning of Mahayana 大乘大義章 (Dacheng dayizhang). He died in his hermitage on Mount Lu at the age of eighty-two. 130
