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Biography of Tao-an
Name: Tao-an
Birth Date: 312
Death Date: 385
Place of Birth: Hopei Province, China
Nationality: Chinese
Gender: Male
Occupations: monk
Tao-an
Tao-an (312-385) was the first native Chinese Buddhist monk of major importance. He inspired his disciples to seek the word of the Buddha in the best translations of texts from India and to interpret them in a critical, almost "scientific," spirit.Tao-an, whose family name was Wei, came from a traditionally Confucian family who lived in what is now southern Hopei Province. He was born in a period of constant bloody warfare and seems to have been orphaned at an early age. He became a Buddhist novice at the age of 11, slowly distinguishing himself by his phenomenal intelligence, although his appearance was extremely unprepossessing. As was the custom, he left his monastery after ordination to wander from place to place seeking instruction from different masters, studying sometime after 335 with Fo-t'u-teng in Yeh (northern Honan).Tao-an soon led his own disciples in various monasteries in the North, being joined by his most …showed first 150 words…
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…showed last 150 words…of the true meaning of Buddhist texts. Toward the very end of his life, Tao-an felt overwhelmed by the feeling that he could no longer assimilate this obviously more profound understanding of the Buddhist message. This feeling was typical of him, of his conscientiousness, his humility, and his intellectual honesty, making him the most important figure in early Chinese Buddhism, before he was overshadowed by his disciple Hui-Yüan and by Kumarajiva, who was brought to China through Tao-an's influence. Tao-an died in Ch'ang-an. Further Reading The once voluminous writings of Tao-an survive today mainly in relatively short citations in other works. The standard work on him is in Japanese, but Erik Zürcher, The Buddhist Conquest of China (2 vols., 1959), gives an excellent discussion of his life and doctrines, and Seng-chao, The Book of Chao, translated and edited by Walter Liebenthal (1948), gives a fuller account of the doctrines.
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