Anchō 安澄 (Ānchéng, 763–814), Japanese Daianji 大安寺 scholar-monk and the dominant Sanron 三論 exegete of the late Nara and early Heian period. The second-generation systematic Sanron scholar after 道慈 Dōji 道慈 (d. 744) brought 吉藏 Jízàng’s Zhōngguān lùn shū (T1824 = KR6m0006) and related commentaries back from Tang Chang’an. Studied under 勤操 Gonsō 勤操 (754–827); taught a wide range of Heian Buddhist intellectuals including the young 空海 Kūkai 空海 (774–835) in the latter’s early Daianji period.
Anchō’s commentarial method, exemplified in KR6m0007 Zhōng lùn shū jì 中論疏記, is encyclopaedic and conservative: rather than reconciling competing Sanron interpretations into a single doctrinal line, he records them side by side under the explicit principle “jí zhòng yìshuō bù gǎn hé huì 集衆異說不敢和會” (“collecting the various interpretations without daring to harmonise them”). T2255 is, for this reason, the principal Japanese witness for the now-lost early Sanron commentarial culture of seventh- and eighth-century East Asia, preserving citations from otherwise unrecoverable Korean (Hyegwan, Wŏnch’ŭk) and Chinese (Pou-ji, Zhēnjì) Sanron masters. DILA Buddhist Person Authority A000372; Wikidata Q11450947.
Works:
- KR6m0007 Zhōng lùn shū jì 中論疏記 (T65n2255), 8 fasc., his principal extant work.