Lǐ Tōngxuán 李通玄 (645–740, longevity 96 years; alternate variant lifedates 635–730 in some Sòng-period sources but the 645–740 range, derived from the Sòng gāosēng zhuàn and the Yí nián lù 疑年錄 and accepted by DILA A000517, is preferred), known to East Asian tradition as the “Old Worthy of the Zǎo Bǎi” (棗柏大士 Zǎobǎi dàshì) or simply Lǐzhǎngzhě 李長者 (“the Old Master Lǐ”), was a Tang-dynasty lay Buddhist scholar and the author of an idiosyncratic and highly influential body of writings on the [[KR6e0010|Huáyán jīng]]. According to the Sòng gāosēng zhuàn 宋高僧傳 (T2061, juan 22) and the (now-lost) Lǐ zhǎngzhě shìjī 李長者事跡 cited by 志磐 Zhìpán in his Fózǔ tǒngjì 佛祖統紀 (T2035), he was of imperial Tang collateral descent (a junior member of the imperial Lǐ 李 clan), refused all official appointments, and devoted himself to a reclusive life on the slopes of Mt. Tàiháng 太行山 (modern Shānxī), where he is said to have lived for thirty years in a cave eating only jujubes (zǎo 棗) and cypress-leaves (bǎi 柏) — hence his epithet Zǎobǎi dàshì — and writing his commentaries by the light of a self-illumining lamp.
His principal works are the [[KR6e0022|Xīn huáyán jīng lùn 新華嚴經論]] (T1739, in 40 fasc. — his great commentary on the new (80-fasc.) Huáyán, completed during the early years of the Kāiyuán era, c. 720), the [[KR6e0024|Lüè shì xīn huáyán jīng xiūxíng cìdì jué yí lùn 略釋新華嚴經修行次第決疑論]] (T1741, 4 fasc.), and the [[KR6e0023|Dà fāngguǎng fó huáyán jīng zhōng juàn juàn dà yì lüè xù 大方廣佛華嚴經中卷卷大意略敘]] (T1740, 1 fasc., a chapter-by-chapter summary).
Lǐ Tōngxuán’s interpretation of the Avataṃsaka differs sharply from the school doctrine of 法藏 Fǎzàng and 澄觀 Chéngguān: where the latter built their reading on the elaborate scholastic apparatus of the Five Teachings, the Ten Mysterious Gates, and the doctrine of xìng qǐ 性起, Lǐ-zhǎngzhě’s reading is more contemplative and visionary, structured around correlations of the sūtra’s ten stages (十地) with the ten classical Confucian jūn-zǐ 君子 virtues, the ten heavenly stems and twelve earthly branches, the four cardinal directions, and so forth. His theology developed independently outside the school-tradition lineage of Wǔtái-Zhōngnán, and his works circulated widely among lay Buddhist literati (rather than within monastic Huáyán scholasticism) from the eighth century onward. In the Sòng he was rediscovered by Chán-sympathetic scholars and his interpretation of the Avataṃsaka — which read the sūtra as primarily a description of the bodhisattva’s interior contemplative process — became important for the Linji-Huáyán synthesis associated with Yúnmén Wényǎn and Dà-huì Zōnggǎo. He died in Kāi-yuán 28 (740) at the age of 96.