Jizang (吉藏 - Jízàng; ཤུབས་བཟང་། shubs bzang Shupzang), widely revered across East Asian Buddhist history as Master Jiaxiang (嘉祥大師), stands as the supreme systematizer and culmination of the Chinese Sanlun (Three Treatises) school of Madhyamaka (Middle Way) philosophy. Flourishing in China during the Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui dynasty across the 6th century to 7th century, with his year of birth in 549 and his year of death in 623, Jizang was born in Jinling (modern Nanjing) to a father of Parthian (Anxi) descent who practiced fearless renunciation and ordained as a Buddhist monk soon after his son's birth, and a Chinese mother who brought young Jizang to meet the renowned Central Asian translator Paramartha (499–569) at the age of seven. At fourteen, Jizang took formal refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha and entered the monastic order at the Xinghuang Temple under the guidance of Falang (507–581), the leading master of the Sanlun lineage descended from Kumarajiva and Sengzhao.
Under Falang's rigorous mentorship in Jinling, Jizang mastered the three foundational Sanskrit treatises translated by Kumarajiva that define the Sanlun canon: Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika (Taisho Number 1564 in the Chinese Tripitaka and Toh Number 3824 in the Tibetan Tripitaka) and Dvadasamukhashastra (Taisho Number 1568), alongside Aryadeva's Shatashastra (Taisho Number 1569), often supplemented by the encyclopedic Mahaprajnaparamitopadesha (Taisho Number 1509). Following the Sui reunification of China in 589, Jizang relocated to the Jiaxiang Temple on Mount Kuaiji in Zhejiang, where he lectured tirelessly to thousands of monastic and lay disciples and composed his monumental commentaries before being summoned by the Sui imperial family—first to Yangzhou by Prince Yang Guang (later Emperor Yang) in 597 and subsequently to the Riyuan Temple in the capital Chang'an in 606, where he later served as one of the Ten Great Virtuous Monks under the early Tang dynasty.
Jizang's central philosophical mission was to purify Chinese Buddhist thought from lingering ontological reifications found in rival scholastic traditions—particularly the Satyasiddhi (Chengshi), Abhidharma, and early Dilun and Shelun schools—by restoring the uncompromising dialectical negation of Nagarjuna and Aryadeva. In his seminal independent treatises, most notably the Sanlun Xuanyi (三論玄義 - Sānlùn Xuányì; Profound Meaning of the Three Treatises, Taisho Number 1852) and the Dasheng Xuanlun (大乘玄論 - Dàshèng Xuánlùn; Profound Treatise on the Mahayana, Taisho Number 1853), Jizang formulated the famous method of Refuting the False Is Precisely Revealing the True (破邪即顯正 - pò xié jí xiǎn zhèng). He demonstrated that ultimate truth is not a separate metaphysical entity established after refuting false views, but rather that the complete dissolution of all one-sided conceptual attachments to being, non-being, both, or neither is itself the direct awakening to emptiness and the Middle Way.
To systematize Nagarjuna's doctrine of the Two Truths—conventional truth (संवृतिसत्य - saṃvṛtisatya; ཀུན་རྫོབ་བདེན་པ། kun rdzob bden pa Kündzob Denpa) and ultimate truth (परमार्थसत्य - paramārthasatya; དོན་དམ་བདེན་པ། don dam bden pa Döndam Denpa)—Jizang developed his celebrated dialectic of the Four Levels of the Two Truths (四重二諦 - sìchóng èrdì), elucidated thoroughly in his Erdi Yi (二諦義 - Èrdì Yì; Meaning of the Two Truths, Taisho Number 1854). On the first level, ordinary beings take worldly phenomena as real while sages realize them as emptiness; on the second level, clinging to either being or emptiness constitutes conventional duality, whereas their non-duality is ultimate; on the third level, asserting duality versus non-duality remains conventional, while transcending both is ultimate; and on the fourth level, all conceptual assertions and negations are relinquished so that every provisional teaching serves solely as pedagogical skillful means pointing toward dependent origination and dependent co-arising.
Through this fourfold dialectical ascent, Jizang harmonized ultimate emptiness of self and anatta with the dynamic functioning of conventional reality within samsara, proving that karma, rebirth, dukkha, anicca, and the five aggregates operate coherently without possessing any inherent essence (स्वभाव - svabhāva; རང་བཞིན། rang bzhin Rangzhin). In his exhaustive line-by-line commentaries preserved in the Chinese Tripitaka—including the Zhongguanlun Shu (Taisho Number 1824) on the Mulamadhyamakakarika, the Bailun Shu (Taisho Number 1827) on the Shatashastra, and the Shiermenlun Shu (Taisho Number 1825) on the Dvadasamukhashastra—he showed how ethical conduct, precepts, generosity, merit, mindfulness, meditation, concentration, and right view systematically uproot the three poisons of greed, hatred, and delusion along the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path.
Beyond the three core Madhyamaka shastras, Jizang authored more than forty major commentaries spanning the entire Mahayana sutra canon, integrating Prajnaparamita dialectics with the inclusive One Vehicle (Ekayana) and universal Buddha-nature (tathagatagarbha) teachings of East Asian Buddhism. His monumental sutra exegetical works in the Chinese Tripitaka include the Fahua Xuanlun (Taisho Number 1720) and Fahua Yishu (Taisho Number 1721) on the Saddharmapundarika Sutra (Lotus Sutra, Taisho Number 262 and Toh Number 113), the Jingming Xuanlun (Taisho Number 1780) on the Vimalakirtinirdesha Sutra (Taisho Number 475 and Toh Number 176), the Niepan Jing Youshi (Taisho Number 1768) on the Mahaparinirvana Sutra (Taisho Number 374 and Toh Number 119), and the Guan Wuliangshou Jing Yishu (Taisho Number 1752) on the Amitayurdhyana Sutra (Taisho Number 365), demonstrating that universal Buddha-nature is none other than the Middle Way itself.
In his personal conduct and monastic leadership at Mount Kuaiji and Chang'an, Jizang exemplified the union of profound analytical wisdom with tireless compassion, loving-kindness, equanimity, and non-attachment. Even while receiving immense imperial patronage from the Sui and Tang courts, he maintained strict monastic simplicity, wore patched robes, donated all material offerings to support poor monastics and transcribe sacred scriptures, and continuously emphasized that intellectual mastery of Madhyamaka logic must culminate in selfless bodhicitta and active bodhisattva service across the six realms rather than sectarian pride or verbal disputation.
Following his peaceful passing into final parinirvana at the Yanxing Temple in Chang'an in 623 at the age of seventy-five, Jizang's vast literary corpus cemented the Sanlun school as one of the foundational philosophical pillars of East Asian Buddhism. Transmitted directly to Korea and Japan by his Korean disciple Hyegwan in 625—where it became the Sanron school at Nara—Jizang's brilliant synthesis of emptiness, the Four Levels of the Two Truths, and Buddha-nature exerted a lasting influence on Tiantai, Huayan, and Chan thinkers, standing alongside the works of Nagarjuna, Aryadeva, Candrakirti, Shantideva, Atisha, and Tsongkhapa as an enduring monument to the Middle Way.