Jianzhen (688–763), also known by his Japanese name Ganjin (,), was a Tang Chinese

monk A monk (; from , ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a man who is a member of a religious order and lives in a monastery. A monk usually lives his life in prayer and contemplation. The concept is ancient and can be seen in many reli ...

who helped to propagate

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. In the eleven years from 743 to 754, Jianzhen attempted to visit

some six times, arriving in the year 753 and founding

Tōshōdai-ji is a Buddhist temple of the Risshū sect in the city of Nara, in Nara Prefecture, Japan. The Classic Golden Hall, also known as the '' kondō'', has a single story, hipped tiled roof with a seven bay wide facade. It is considered the archetyp ...

Nara The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent agency of the United States government within the executive branch, charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It is also task ...

. When he finally succeeded on his sixth attempt, he had lost his eyesight as a result of an infection acquired during his journeys. Jianzhen's life story and voyage are described in the scroll, "The Sea Journey to the East of a Great

Bonze A ''bhikkhu'' (, ) is an ordained male in Buddhist monasticism. Male, and female monastics (''bhikkhunī''), are members of the Sangha (Buddhist community). The lives of all Buddhist monastics are governed by a set of rules called the prātimo ...

from the Tang Dynasty."

Life

Jianzhen was born in Jiangyin county in Guangling Prefecture (present day

Yangzhou Yangzhou is a prefecture-level city in central Jiangsu Province, East China. Sitting on the north bank of the Yangtze, it borders the provincial capital Nanjing to the southwest, Huai'an to the north, Yancheng to the northeast, Taizhou, Jiangsu, ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, with the surname of Chunyu (). At the age of fourteen, he became a disciple of Dayun Temple (). At twenty he travelled to

Chang'an Chang'an (; zh, t=長安, s=长安, p=Cháng'ān, first=t) is the traditional name of the city now named Xi'an and was the capital of several Chinese dynasties, ranging from 202 BCE to 907 CE. The site has been inhabited since Neolithic time ...

for study and returned six years later, eventually becoming abbot of Daming Temple. Besides his learning in the

Tripiṭaka There are several Buddhist canons, which refers to the various scriptural collections of Buddhist sacred scriptures or the various Buddhist scriptural canons.

, Jianzhen is also said to have been an expert in medicine. He opened the Buddhist temple as a place of healing, creating the Beitian Court (悲田院)—a hospital within Daming Temple. In autumn 742, an emissary from Japan invited Jianzhen to lecture in Japan. Despite protests from his disciples, Jianzhen made preparations and in spring 743 was ready for the long voyage across the

East China Sea The East China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean, located directly offshore from East China. China names the body of water along its eastern coast as "East Sea" (, ) due to direction, the name of "East China Sea" is otherwise ...

to Japan. The crossing failed and in the following years, Jianzhen made three more attempts but was thwarted by unfavourable conditions or government intervention. File:Travels of Jianzhen.png , Map of Jianzhen's travels In summer 748, Jianzhen made his fifth attempt to reach Japan. Leaving from Yangzhou, he made it to the

Zhoushan Archipelago Zhoushan is an urbanized archipelago with the administrative status of a prefecture-level city in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang. It consists of an archipelago of islands at the southern mouth of Hangzhou Bay off the mainland c ...

off the coast of modern

Zhejiang ) , translit_lang1_type2 = , translit_lang1_info2 = ( Hangzhounese) ( Ningbonese) (Wenzhounese) , image_skyline = 玉甑峰全貌 - panoramio.jpg , image_caption = View of the Yandang Mountains , image_map = Zhejiang i ...

. But the ship was blown off course and ended up in the Yande (延德) commandery on

Hainan Island Hainan is an island province and the southernmost province of China. It consists of the eponymous Hainan Island and various smaller islands in the South China Sea under the province's administration. The name literally means "South of the Sea ...

. Jianzhen was then forced to make his way back to Yangzhou by land, lecturing at a number of monasteries on the way. Jianzhen travelled along the

Gan River The Gan River (, Gan: Kōm-kong) runs north through the western part of Jiangxi before flowing into Lake Poyang and thus the Yangtze River. The Xiang-Gan uplands separate it from the Xiang River of neighboring eastern Hunan. Two similarly siz ...

Jiujiang Jiujiang, formerly transliterated Kiukiang and Kew-Keang, is a prefecture-level city located on the southern shores of the Yangtze River in northwest Jiangxi Province in the People's Republic of China. It is the second-largest prefecture-level ...

, and then down the

Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...

. The entire failed enterprise took him close to three years. By the time Jianzhen returned to Yangzhou, he was blind from an infection. In the autumn of 753, the blind Jianzhen decided to join a Japanese emissary ship returning to its home country. After an eventful sea journey of several months, the group finally landed at

Kagoshima , is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 583,966 in 285,992 households, and a population density of 1100 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Etymology While the ...

Kyūshū is the third-largest island of Japan's four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa and the other Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Islands). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regio ...

, on December 20. They reached

in the spring of the next year and were welcomed by the Emperor. At Nara, Jianzhen presided over

Tōdai-ji is a Buddhist temple complex that was once one of the powerful Nanto Shichi Daiji, Seven Great Temples, located in the city of Nara, Nara, Nara, Japan. The construction of the temple was an attempt to imitate Chinese temples from the much-admir ...

. The Chinese monks who travelled with him introduced Chinese religious sculpture to the Japanese. In 755, the first ordination platform in Japan was constructed at Tōdai-ji, on the place where including former

Emperor Shōmu was the 45th Emperor of Japan, emperor of Japan,Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'') 聖武天皇 (45)/ref> according to the traditional List of Emperors of Japan, order of succession. Shōmu's reign spanned the years 724 through 749, duri ...

and Empress Kōmyō received ordination by Jianzhen a year earlier. In 759 he retired to a piece of land granted to him by the imperial court in the western part of Nara. There he founded a school and also set up a private temple,

. In the ten years until his death in Japan, Jianzhen not only propagated the Buddhist faith among the aristocracy, but also served as an important conductor of Chinese culture. Jianzhen died on the 6th day of the 5th month of 763.

Legacy

Jianzhen is credited with the introduction of the Ritsu school of Buddhism to Japan, which focused on the ''

vinaya The Vinaya (Pali and Sanskrit: विनय) refers to numerous monastic rules and ethical precepts for fully ordained monks and nuns of Buddhist Sanghas (community of like-minded ''sramanas''). These sets of ethical rules and guidelines devel ...

'', or Buddhist monastic rules. A dry-lacquer statue of the monk made shortly after his death can still occasionally be seen at Tōshōdai-ji. Recognised as one of the greatest of its type, it has been postulated by statue restoration experts that the statue incorporates linen clothing originally worn by Ganjin.NHK World, ''Mysteries of Ganjin's Statue'', 11/2/13. The statue is made public only during a limited number of days around the anniversary of Jianzhen's death. For example, it was exhibited from June 2nd to 10th in 2007. The statue was temporarily brought to Jianzhen's original temple in

in 1980 as part of a long-planned friendship exchange between Japan and China. In preparation, the Chinese dredged the entire Slender West Lake leading up to the temple from the old city center and rehabilitated Buddhist temples and other sites around the area.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* Bingenheimer, Marcus (2003).
A translation of the Tōdaiwajō tōseiden 唐大和上東征傳." (Part 1)
" The Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies 4, 168-189 * Bingenheimer, Marcus (2004).
A translation of the Tōdaiwajō tōseiden 唐大和上東征傳. (Part 2)
, The Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies 5, 142-181 * * Genkai, Aomi-no Mabito; Takakusu J., trans. (1928)
Le voyage de Kanshin en Orient (742-754)
Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient 28 (1), 1-41 * Genkai, Aomi-no Mabito; Takakusu J., trans. (1929)
Le voyage de Kanshin en Orient (742-754)
Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient 29 (1), 47-62 * Zhou, Yuzhi (2016)
Ganjin: From Vinaya Master to Ritsu School Founder
Journal of Asian Humanities at kyushu University 1, 47-52

External links

{{Authority control Tang dynasty Buddhist monks Japanese Buddhist clergy Blind clergy 688 births 763 deaths Chinese emigrants to Japan Founders of Buddhist sects Buddhist clergy of the Nara period People from Yangzhou 8th-century Chinese physicians Physicians with disabilities Chinese blind people Japanese blind people