Liáng-dynasty monk-translator and bibliographer. Native of Wúxiàn 吳縣 in Wújùn 吳郡 (modern Sūzhōu), lay surname Cén 岑. Birth and death dates not securely transmitted (active ca. 495 – ca. 528). At the age of eighteen he took ordination under Sēng Yòu 僧祐 (445–518) at Jiànchūsì 建初寺 in the southern capital, then resided at Zhuāngyánsì 莊嚴寺. In Tiānjiān 天監 4 (505) he entered the imperial city and was placed by edict of Liáng Wǔdì at Xīn’ānsì 新安寺.
His court-bibliographic and editorial output, all produced under direct imperial commission, is the most ambitious of the south-Liáng catalog tradition: he served as collaborator-redactor for Sēng Mín’s 僧旻 88-juan Zhòng-jīng yào-chāo 眾經要抄, for Sēng Lǎng’s 僧朗 72-juan annotated Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra, was brush-receiver in Saṅghabhara’s 僧伽婆羅 translation team for the Aśoka-rāja-sūtra 阿育王經 and ten further texts, and revised the Huā-lín-fó-diàn zhòng-jīng mù-lù 華林佛殿眾經目錄 originally by Sēng Shào 僧紹 of An-lè-sì 安樂寺.
Three of his own compilations survive in the canon: the present Jīnglǜ yìxiàng 經律異相 (KR6s0001, T2121), the Bǐqiūní zhuàn 比丘尼傳 (T2063, the earliest extant collection of biographies of Chinese nuns), and the fragmentary Míngsēng zhuàn chāo 名僧傳抄 (X1523).
Source: Dàoxuān, Xù gāosēng zhuàn 續高僧傳, j. 1 (T50n2060_p0426b13–p0426c14); DILA Buddhist Person Authority A001926.