Dàochuò 道綽 (562–645)
One of the Five Patriarchs of the Chinese Pure Land tradition (Lúshān Huìyuǎn → 曇鸞 Tánluán → Dàochuò → 善導 Shàndǎo → Hùaigǎn 懷感 → …), and the central figure in the early-Tang transmission of Tánluán’s Pure Land doctrine to Shàndǎo. Native of Bīngzhōu 并州 (modern Shānxī). Lay surname Wèi 衞. Lifedates 562 (Northern Zhōu Bǎodìng 2) – 645 (Tang Zhēnguān 19), age 84.
Dàochuò entered monastic life at age 14 and studied initially the Niè-pán jīng 涅槃經 (Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra) tradition. According to the standard biography in Xù gāo-sēng zhuàn 續高僧傳 juǎn 20, he turned definitively to Pure Land devotion after encountering at the Xuán-zhōng-sì 玄中寺 (the temple of the Pure Land patriarch 曇鸞 Tán-luán) a stele inscription recording Tán-luán’s life and teaching. From that point Dàochuò lectured on the Guān-wúliángshòu fó jīng over two hundred times, “calling on the name of Amitābha tens of thousands of times daily” (niàn-fó with bean-counting xiǎo-dòu 小豆 — the prototype of the Pure Land xìng-fó 行佛 practice).
His major work is the Ānlè jí 安樂集 KR6p0037 (T47N1958), a doctrinal treatise on the Pure Land of Sukhāvatī arranged in twelve “great gates” (dàmén 大門). The work consolidates the èr lì 二力 (own-power/other-power) doctrine inherited from Tánluán and develops the mòfǎ 末法 (“end of the Dharma”) rationale for Pure Land devotion: in the degenerate latter age, only the path of “other-power” via niànfó remains practicable. The text was foundational for all subsequent Tang Pure Land doctrine and is the immediate source for Shàndǎo’s articulation in the Guānwúliángshòu fó jīng shū KR6f0076 (T1753).
He died at Xuánzhōngsì in 645 at age 84, having spent the final decades of his life as the principal Pure Land master of his region.
Sources: Xù gāosēng zhuàn 續高僧傳 vol. 20 (Dàoxuān 道宣, c. 645); Sòng gāosēng zhuàn 宋高僧傳; Fó zǔ tǒng jì 佛祖統紀 vol. 28; Lèbāng wénlèi KR6p0048 vol. 3.