Shì Sēngzhào 釋僧肇 (384–414), surnamed Zhāng 張, a native of Cháng’ān, was the most philosophically gifted of Kumārajīva’s (鳩摩羅什) Chinese disciples and is universally regarded as the founder of Chinese Mahāyāna scholasticism in its Mádhyamaka inflection. Originally trained in the Lǎozǐ 老子 and Zhuāngzǐ 莊子, he is reported by the Gāosēng zhuàn 高僧傳 (T2059, 365b–366a) to have read the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa (《維摩經》) and to have ordained on the strength of that experience. He joined Kumārajīva’s translation bureau in Cháng’ān, where he served both as redactor and as a leading interpreter; his short essays — Bōrě wúzhī lùn 般若無知論 (“On Prajñā Having No Knowing,” composed in 404 in response to Kumārajīva’s translation of the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā), Bù zhēn kōng lùn 不真空論 (“On the Unreality of Emptiness”), Wù bù qiān lùn 物不遷論 (“On the Immobility of Things”) and the postume Niè-pán wú-míng lùn 涅槃無名論 — were later assembled with prefaces and correspondence as the Zhào lùn 肇論 (T1858), one of the foundational texts of Chinese Buddhist philosophy. He also produced the seminal Zhù Wéimójié jīng 注維摩詰經 (T1775), the standard early Chinese commentary on the Vimalakīrti. He died in Cháng’ān at the age of 31. As a senior member of Kumārajīva’s circle he was associated with the parallel translation bureau under Buddhayaśas; the preface he wrote to the [[KR6a0001|Cháng Āhán jīng 長阿含經]] in 413 is the principal contemporary witness to the circumstances of that translation.