DAOCHUO (562–645), known in Japan as Dōshaku; Chinese pioneer of Pure Land Buddhism in East Asia. Daochuo advocated devotion to Amitābha Buddha and rebirth in his Pure Land as the only practice in our age that would guarantee salvation. Although Pure Land devotion was popular among most Mahāyāna Buddhists as a supplementary practice, Daochuo followed Tanluan (c. 488–c. 554) in regarding it as necessary for salvation. Other forms of Buddhism he branded as the "path of the sages" (shengdao), too difficult to practice during these times.

A religious crisis caused in part by the bewildering demands of Indian Buddhist texts in the eyes of Chinese practitioners was exacerbated by famine and war in the Bingzhou area of Shansi Province where Daochuo lived, and he became the first Pure Land thinker to proclaim that the ten-thousand-year historical period predicted by the scriptures for the final decline of...