The last of the nittō hakke (入唐八家) — the eight Heian-era Japanese monks who undertook Tang study missions. Japanese name Shūei 宗叡. Born 809 CE; died 884 CE.
He traveled to Tang China in 862, returning to Japan in 865, with the final substantial Heian importation of Tang Buddhist materials. After the Shūei mission, the institutional Japanese Tang-pilgrimage tradition effectively ended (the formal imperial Japanese embassies to Tang were discontinued in 894 under the proposal of Sugawara no Michizane 菅原道真).
He produced two preserved importation catalogs (KR6s0121–KR6s0122) and held the senior Heian-court ecclesiastical office of sēngzhèng 僧正 (“senior ecclesiastical-administrative”) at Chánlínsì 禪林寺 in Kyoto.
Source: KR6s0121–KR6s0122; standard Japanese Heian Buddhist sources.