Fa-chao (8th-early 9th c. ce)

A Chinese Pure Land monk of the T'ang dynasty period. During his early career he cultivated the trance (samādhi) of Buddha contemplation (Chinese, nien-fo san-mei), and while in meditation at Lu-shan, he attained a vision of the Buddha Amitābha, who directly expounded Pure Land doctrines and practices to him. After this, he moved to the capital city and began teaching the literati to recite the name using five different chant tunes that Amitābha had taught him. Besides his ardent devotion to the practice of invoking the Buddha's name as a means to gain rebirth in the Pure Land, he also made use of his training in T'ien-t'ai thought in order to explain the practice, using arguments that were at the forefront of Buddhist intellectual activity during that time. Due to his success in spreading Pure Land teachings amidst competition from other schools of practice, such as Ch'an and esoteric Buddhism, he became known popularly as the ‘latter-day Shan-tao’, and was honoured by the emperor with the title ‘National Teacher’.

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