GANJIN (Chin., Jianzhen; 688–763) was a Buddhist Vinaya master from China who introduced procedures for ordaining Buddhist clergy into Japan and who established the Risshu, or Vinaya school, of Buddhism there. Ganjin's birthplace was Yangzhou, a prosperous shipping town in eastern China. There he underwent tonsure at a local temple in 701. Four years later he received the bodhisattva precepts, a set of vows administered as a sign of devotion to Mahāyāna Buddhist principles.

At the age of nineteen, Ganjin traveled to China's traditional capitals of Luoyang and Chang'an to study at the major centers of Buddhist learning. His primary field of training was Vinaya, the ancient rules and procedures governing the life and behavior of Buddhist priests and nuns. Interest in the Vinaya had peaked in China a century earlier, and a formal school, the Lüzong, was established to preserve and promote clerical practices based on...