The ninth patriarch of the Tiāntái 天台 school and the principal architect of the mid-Táng Tiāntái revival; one of the central scholastic figures of medieval Chinese Buddhism. DILA Authority A001307. Lay surname Qī 戚; native of Chángzhōu 常州 (modern Jiāngsū). Honorifics: Jīngxī zūnzhě 荊溪尊者 (after his Jīngxī residence in his teacher’s lifetime), Yuántōng zūnzhě 圓通尊者, Miàolè dàshī 妙樂大師, Jìzhǔ fǎshī 記主法師 (“Master of the [Sub-]Commentaries”). Born 711, died at the Fólǒng 佛隴 retreat at Tiāntáishān on the 5th day of the 2nd month of Jiànzhōng 建中 3 (= 27 March 782), aged 72, with 43 years of monastic seniority.
At seventeen he received Tiāntái zhǐguān 止觀 instruction from Fāngyán 方巖 of Jīnhuá 金華; at twenty he entered the school of Xuánlǎng 玄朗 (673–754) of Zuǒxī 左溪, the eighth Tiāntái patriarch, under whom he completed his Tiāntái formation. He took monastic ordination only at age 38 at the Jìnglèsì 淨樂寺 in Yíxīng 宜興, and subsequently studied vinaya with Tányī 曇一 at Yuèzhōu 越州. After Xuánlǎng’s death in 754 he was acknowledged as Tiāntái patriarch and spent his mature years at the Guóqīngsì 國清寺 on Tiāntáishān.
Zhànrán’s career falls in the immediate aftermath of the An Lushan rebellion (755–763), during which Tiāntáishān was largely cut off from imperial patronage. His central project was the systematic commentarial recovery of the Zhìyǐ corpus: in particular he produced the three great Tiāntái subcommentaries — the Fǎhuá xuányì shìqiān 法華玄義釋籤 (KR6d0007, T1717) on Zhìyǐ’s Xuányì (KR6d0006), the Fǎhuá wénjù jì 法華文句記 (T1719) on Zhìyǐ’s Wénjù, and the Zhǐguān fǔxíng zhuànhóngjué 止觀輔行傳弘決 (T1912) on Zhìyǐ’s Móhē zhǐguān — which became the standard interpretive apparatus for the Tiāntái scholastic tradition.
His independent works include the Jīngāngbēi 金剛錍 (T1932), the Shíbùèrmén 十不二門 (T1927), and the Zhǐguān dàyì 止觀大意 (T1914), which together developed the doctrine of the buddha-nature of insentient beings (wúqíng yǒu xìng 無情有性) that became one of Tiāntái’s most distinctive theoretical commitments — and the principal point of contention in subsequent Sòng-period shānjiā / shānwài 山家山外 polemics.
Through his disciple Xíngmǎn 行滿 (whose successor Dàosuì 道邃 was the Chinese teacher of the Japanese Tendai founder Saichō 最澄, 767–822), Zhànrán’s mature Tiāntái synthesis was directly transmitted to Japan and became the foundational doctrinal apparatus of the Hieizan establishment.
Sources: Sòng gāosēng zhuàn 宋高僧傳 (T2061) juan 6; Fózǔ tǒngjì 佛祖統紀 (T2035) juan 7; DILA A001307. Cf. Penkower (1993, 2000) for the modern critical biography.