FAZANG (643–712), also known as Xianshou; third patriarch and systematizer of the Huayan school, a Chinese Buddhist tradition centered around exegesis of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra. His surname, Kang, indicates that his family was originally from Samarkand in Central Asia. Fazang was a son of Mi, a high-ranking army officer in the Tang dynasty. When he was sixteen years old he burned off one of his fingers as an offering to the Buddha before an Aśoka stupa in which relics of the Buddha were enshrined. After seeking without success for a satisfactory teacher, he entered Mount Taibei, where he studied Mahāyāna Buddhism in seclusion. Some years later, hearing that his parents were ill, he returned home to Chang'an, where Zhiyan (later reckoned the second Huayan patriarch) was lecturing on the Huayan jing (Mahāvaipulya-buddhagaṇḍavyūha Sūtra) at the Yunhua Si. Yan Zhaoyin, Fazang's...