Late-Tang Tiāntái-school monk, disciple of the ninth Tiāntái patriarch Jīngxī Zhānrán 荊溪湛然 (711–782; sobriquet 妙樂大師 Miàolè dàshī). Native of Huángyán 黃岩 (in modern Zhèjiāng). Lifedates unknown; the floruit given here (770–810) reflects his attested mature scholastic period in the generation immediately after Zhānrán.
According to the Tāishān fāngwài zhì 天台山方外志 and the brief notice in Sòng gāosēng zhuàn (T50n2061), Míngkuàng first travelled the southeast in search of doctrinal instruction, took the full precepts (upasampadā) at age 20 at Shàn 剡邑, and entered the major Tiāntái centre of Guóqīngsì 國清寺 on Mt Tiāntái, where he studied Tiāntái doctrine with Zhānrán. The DILA Buddhist Studies Person Authority records his teacher as 章安 (Guàndǐng 灌頂, 561–632) but this is a generation-misattribution — Zhānrán is the actual instructor; Guàndǐng is the school’s lineage-source.
His extant works include the present Bōrě xīnjīng shū 般若心經疏 (X528 = KR6c0147), the Fànwǎng shū 梵網疏 (3 juan), a kēwén on the Jīnpí lùn 金錍論 (Zhānrán’s Jīn’gāng pí lùn), the Tiāntái bājiào dàyì 天台八教大意 (T46n1930, an important compendium of the Tiāntái doctrinal system), and a Fǎhuá jīng dàyì 法華經大意 with a kēwén on the Avalokiteśvara chapter. Together these form a coherent Tiāntái scholastic output continuing Zhānrán’s project of consolidating the school’s doctrinal foundations after the mid-Tang persecution.
He is one of the principal transmitters of Zhānrán’s Tiāntái into the late Tang, and his works circulated widely in the East Asian Tiāntái / Tendai tradition.