Genshin 源信 (also referenced as Eshin Sōzu 惠心僧都, “Eshin the Sōzu [head of the Buddhist clergy]”), the central figure of the early-medieval Japanese Tendai 天台 school and one of the most influential figures of pre-modern Japanese Buddhism. DILA Authority A001050. Born 942; died 27 May 1017 – 25 January 1018, aged about 76.
Resided at the Eshin-in 惠心院 of the Hieizan 比叡山 establishment, the principal Tendai monastic complex in Japan. Author of the Ōjō yōshū 往生要集 (T2682, Essentials of Pure Land Rebirth) — the foundational text of the Japanese Pure Land tradition, which decisively shaped the subsequent development of the Hōnen-Shinran Pure Land schools.
For the present catalog, Genshin contributed the yíwèn 疑問 (“doubt-questions”) to the Sòng Tiāntáizōng wèijué (KR6d0220, X56n0942) — questions on the Tiāntái doctrinal-meditative system that he sent to the Northern-Sòng Tiāntái master Sìmíng Zhīlǐ for resolution. The work is one of the principal documentary records of the early Heian-period Japanese Tendai-Sòng Tiāntái scholastic exchange.
Sources: DILA A001050; Ōjō yōshū; standard Japanese Tendai biographical literature.