Chan-jan (711-82). The ninth patriarch of the T'ien-t'ai school in China. Chan-jan studied T'ien-t'ai meditation and doctrine from his teenage years onward, but did not enter the monastic order until the age of 38. During his subsequent career he gained fame as a meditation teacher, and also extended T'ien-t'ai doctrine, most notably in his promotion of the view that even non-sentient objects such as trees and stones have Buddha-nature. His energy, intellect, accomplishments in meditation, and fame sparked a revival in the fortunes of the T'ien-t'ai school in the mid- T'ang period.

A Dictionary of Buddhism, Oxford University Press, 2003, 2004 (which is available in electronic version from answer.com)