Fǎcōng 法聰 (Tang, fl. mid-7th c.?)
A Tang-period Buddhist commentator known almost exclusively from his Shì Guānwúliángshòu fó jīng jì 釋觀無量壽佛經記 KR6p0005 (X22n0405), a brief commentary on the Guān wúliángshòu fó jīng 觀無量壽佛經 (the Amitāyurdhyānasūtra). Lifedates not securely established. The text is associated in the printed editions with the Zhōngnán (終南) tradition — i.e. the lineage of 善導 Shàndǎo (613–681) — and Fǎcōng is generally taken to have been a near-contemporary or immediate successor of Shàndǎo, working in the late seventh century. The Xùzàngjīng colophon gives no dates.
He is not to be confused with: (a) the Northern Wèi Vinaya master Fǎcōng of Pínyáng 平陽法聰 (468–559), founding patriarch of the Sìfēnlǜ 四分律 transmission in north China; (b) the Sòng Tiāntái monk Fǎcōng of Yúngfúsì 永福寺 (fl. 11th c.); or (c) the early-Míng Chán monk Fǎcōng of Wànshòu 萬壽法聰. The references in standard Pure Land scholarship (Mochizuki, Bukkyō daijiten; Inagaki 1995) treat the Tang Pure Land Fǎcōng as a separate, biographically thin figure.