Chujin

CHINA, Hebei, Wanping; Tang dynasty

Originally named Cheng, Chujin was a monk from Guangping (present day Wanping, Hebei). Having started to read the Lotus Sutra at the age of 7, he became a monk at Longxing Temple in Chang’an (present day Xi’an, Shaanxi) at age 9, and began lecturing on the Dharma essence of Lotus Sutra by the time he was 18 years old.
Chujin envisioned a pagoda while chanting the “Chapter on the Emergence of the Prabhutaratna Pagoda” of the Lotus Sutra one evening, and decidedly vowed to construct it beginning in 742. During this time, Emperor Xuanzong (reigned 712–756) of the Tang dynasty dreamt of Chujin’s name in characters of gold, a result of which he sent Chujin money and gold silk. The following year, Emperor Xuanzong granted him a horizontal inscribed board reading “Prabhutaratna Pagoda.” After its completion, Chujin invited 49 monks to the pagoda to practice the “Samadhi of the Lotus Sutra.”
He wrote, in his own blood, one volume each of the Lotus Sutra, Bodhisattva Precepts, and Samantabhadra Meditation Sutra, which induced a miraculous vision of over 3,000 relics. Following that, he vowed to write 1,000 copies of the Lotus Sutra and stored them in the pagoda. In 752, the Stele of Prabhutaratna Pagoda was built and its contents were scripted by Yan Zhenqing. Chujin resided at Cuiwei Temple in Anhui, and later at Wuzhen Temple in Shaanxi, and requested the construction of a Prabhutaratna Pagoda at each site. After Chujin’s passing, monk Feixi created the Stele of Master Chujin, which was written and engraved by Wu Tongwei on the backside of Stele of Prabhutaratna Pagoda in 805.