Tan-luan

Tanluan (Chinese: 曇鸞; Japanese pronunciation: Donran, 476–554) was a Chinese Buddhist monk who wrote on Pure Land Buddhism. Tanluan was the first East Asian Buddhist to stress the importance of the Buddha's Other Power as a liberating force. He held that through the practice of nianfo (buddha recollection), the Buddha's power would take them to the pure land after death. This doctrine would become very important in later Pure Land Buddhism. Tanluan's main work is his Jingtu lun zhu (浄土論註; T. 1819), a Commentary to Vasubandhu's Discourse on the Pure Land. Tanluan is considered to be the Third Patriarch of Pure land Buddhism by the Japanese Pure Land sects like Jōdo-shu and Jōdo Shinshū. He was a significant influence on later Pure Land masters like Shandao and Shinran.