Ven. Jian Zhen

Nara, Japan, A.D. 763. In Toshodai Temple, Chinese Buddhist Master the Venerable Jian Zhen dies, aged 76, after nine years in Japan. His Japanese disciple Si Tuo remembers how in 733 he and another monk were sent to China to learn from Buddhist scriptures there and to try and convince Jian Zhen to come to Japan with other Chinese monks to develop and purify Buddhism in their country. After 10 years they finally get to meet Jian Zhen at Daming Temple in Yangzhou and persuade him to travel to Japan. Jian Zhen chooses 17 other Chinese monks to accompany him, but one, Ru Hai, betrays their secret mission to the Chinese authorities. Later that year, in December 743, Jian Zhen and Co. set out again but are shipwrecked off the coast of Zhejiang, where monks inform on them and they are arrested by the Chinese authorities to keep Jian Zhen in the country. Next, Jian Zhen and Co. try to cross the mountains in winter to Fuzhou and charter a ship from there, but are again caught by the authorities. Three years later, in June 748, they make their fifth attempt, even though Jian Zhen's eyesight is now failing, but are swept south by a storm to Zhenzhou, where they are almost killed by fierce natives but are finally welcomed by a Zhenzhou dignitary and given an old temple to renovate. In 751 they set out for the sixth time via Yangzhou, where a Japanese ambassador, Fujiwara, finally smuggles them out on a ship. In December 753 Jian Zhen and his monks reach Japan, where they are presented with their own temple in Nara.