A central figure of the Northern-Sòng Tiāntái 天台 revival and the principal architect of Sòng Tiāntái Pure Land liturgical synthesis; with his contemporary 知禮 Sìmíng Zhīlǐ (960–1028), one of the two foundational figures of Sòng-period Tiāntái doctrinal and devotional culture. DILA Authority A000721. Honorifics: Cíyún chànzhǔ 慈雲懺主 (“Repentance-Master of Compassionate Cloud”), Bǎiběn chànzhǔ 百本懺主 (“Master of a Hundred Repentance Texts”), Tiānzhú chànzhě 天竺懺者 (“Repenter of Tiānzhú [-sì]”). Zì Zhībái 知白. Lay surname unrecorded; native of unrecorded provenance. Born 964; died Míngdào 明道 1, 10th month, 8th day (= 19 November 1032), aged 69.
Took ordination in his youth and entered the Tiāntái scholastic tradition. After early study he became the principal abbot of the Tiānzhúsì 天竺寺 in Hángzhōu (Wǔlín 武林 / West Lake) — a major Tiāntái-Pure Land synthetic centre that under his leadership became one of the principal institutional bases of the Sòng Tiāntái revival. While Zhīlǐ at Sìmíng (Níngbō) led the doctrinal-polemical wing of the shānjiā 山家 tradition, Zūnshì at Tiānzhú led the liturgical-devotional wing, producing a substantial corpus of repentance liturgies (chànyí 懺儀) and Pure Land devotional texts that became the standard liturgical apparatus of subsequent Chinese Buddhism.
Major works: more than one hundred liturgical texts (whence his sobriquet Bǎi-běn chàn-zhǔ), of which the most important are the Jīn-guāng-míng-jīng chàn-fǎ bǔ-zhù-yí 金光明經懺法補助儀 (T1945, the Suvarṇaprabhāsa repentance liturgy), the Wǎngshēng jìng-tǔ chàn-yuàn yí 往生淨土懺願儀 (T1984, the standard Pure Land repentance), the Tiānzhú bié jí 天竺別集, the Cí-yún Zūnshì chàn-zhǔ shǎn yú-jí 慈雲遵式懺主閃餘集, and the present Guānyīn jīng pǔ-mén pǐn chóng-sòng (KR6d0056, X35n0646).
Historical significance: Zūnshì’s Pure Land synthesis at Tiānzhúsì created the institutional and liturgical apparatus through which Tiāntái doctrine was popularly transmitted in the Sòng and through which the Pure Land devotion of the Sòng Buddhist establishment was given its standard liturgical form. His liturgies remained the standard apparatus of Chinese Buddhist devotional practice through the medieval and early-modern periods, and his harmonisation of Tiāntái scholasticism with Pure Land devotion laid the foundation for the later Mízōng 密宗 / Pure Land synthesis under figures such as Yúnqī Zhūhóng 雲棲祩宏 (1535–1615).
Sources: Tánjīn wénjí 鐔津文集 (X1524) juan 12 (the Hángzhōu Wǔlín Tiānzhúsì gù dàfǎshī Cíyún Shìgōng xíngyè qūjì 杭州武林天竺寺故大法師慈雲式公行業曲記); Sòng gāosēng zhuàn 宋高僧傳 (T2061); Fózǔ tǒngjì 佛祖統紀 (T2035); DILA A000721.