Fazang (7th century CE) was the third patriarch of the BuddhistHuayan school. A replica of an ancient statue of Gautama Buddha, found in Sarnath, near Varanasi. ... Huayan (è¯åš´, Pinyin: huaÌyaÌn, Sanskrit: Avatamsaka) or Flower Garland is a tradition of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy that flourished in China during the Tang period. ...
Fazang was a favorite of the Empress Wu, because of his creativity in finding devices for vividly illustrating for her these abstract ideas, two of the most famous of which will now be described.
Fazang's version of this classification, termed "panjiao" or "classification of doctrines," took the form of five different categories of teaching, based on their sophistication and varying accomodation to the limitations of sentient beings.
Fazang's categorization is based on a heuristic though unconvincing historical model, in which the Huayan Sutra was the first Sutra preached by the Buddha while still within the throes of his enlightenment.
Fazang was a native of Sogdiana (in Chinese, Sute).
Fazangs emphasis on the omniversal generative power of the tathagatagarbha, the womb of Buddhahood, while not unique, subsequently developed into an important concept in the East Asian Mahayana Buddhist tradition.
Collectively, Fazangs works and translations must be looked at not only in terms of their metaphysical and ideological merit, but as political rhetoric consciously geared toward promoting the Flower Garland school and exalting the sovereignty of his imperial sponsors.
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