Tao Sheng

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Tao Sheng (道生 pinyin Dào shēng, ca. 360-434) was an eminent Liù Cháo era Chinese Buddhist scholar. Born in Peng-cheng, he studied in Jiankang under Chu Fa-t'ai, and later at Lu-shan monastery with Hui Yüan, and from 405 or 406 under Kumarajiva at Ch'ang-an, the capital of the Eastern Chin, where he stayed for some two years perfecting his education, and became one of the foremost scholars of his time, counted among the "fifteen great disciples" of Kumarajiva.

Seng-chao reports that Tao-Sheng assisted Kumarajiva in his translation of the Lotus Sutra, Tao Sheng wrote commentaries on the Lotus Sutra, the Vimalakirti-nirdesa Sutra and the Astasahasrika-prajnaparamita Sutra (the last of which has been lost). In 408, he returned to Lu-shan, and in 409 back to Jiankang, where remained for some twenty years, staying at the Ch'ing-yuan ssu monastery from 419.

Tao-Sheng controversially ascribed Buddha-nature to the icchantikas, based on his reading on an incomplete version of the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, the full version of which explicitly excludes the icchantikas from the universality of the Buddha-nature. This bold doctrine led to the expulsion of Tao-Sheng from the Buddhist community in 428 or 429, and he retreated to Lu-shan in 430.

At the arrival of the Nirvana Sutra, in the translation of Dharmakshema, Tao-Sheng was vindicated and praised for his insight. He remained in Lu-shan, composing his commentary on the Lotus Sutra in 432, until his death in 434

Tao-Sheng's exegesis of the Nirvana Sutra had an enormous influence on interpretations of the Buddha-nature in Chinese Buddhism that prepared the ground for the Chán school emerging in the 6th century.