Fǎshàng 法上 (495–580), styled Hēishāmí 黑沙彌 (“Dark-Skinned Novice”) and Shèngshāmí 聖沙彌 (“Saintly Novice”) — the latter the same epithet as that of his master 慧光 Huìguāng — and posthumously Shàngtǒng 上統 (“Director Shàng”), was the principal disciple of Huìguāng and the leader of the Dìlùn 地論 school in the southern lineage (南道派) during the Northern Qí period. According to the Xù gāosēng zhuàn 續高僧傳 (T2060, juan 8), he served as the Sēngtǒng 僧統 (Director of Monks) of the Northern Qí 北齊 — the highest Buddhist office in the state, with administrative authority over the entire Buddhist sangha — for a remarkable 40 years, from 552 (the founding of the Northern Qí) until his retirement in the early years of the Northern Zhōu 北周 conquest (577).
Fǎ-shàng was the principal Dìlùn-school authority of his generation, continuing his master Huìguāng’s project of harmonising the Bodhiruci-Ratnamati translations of Vasubandhu’s Daśabhūmika-vyākhyāna and developing the school’s distinctive doctrinal apparatus around the six characteristics (六相), the tathāgatagarbha, and the Buddha-bodies. His extant works are mostly fragmentary and survive primarily through Dūnhuáng manuscripts including [[KR6e0062|Shí dì lùn yì shū 十地論義疏]] (T2799). His students included 淨影慧遠 Jìng-yǐng Huì-yuǎn (523–592), the great Suí-period doctrinal master, and through Huì-yuǎn the Dìlùn tradition descended into the Suí-Tang Buddhist synthesis.