Background
Zhu Jingjian was born in 292. She was the daughter of Zhong Dan.
Zhu Jingjian was born in 292. She was the daughter of Zhong Dan.
It is known that from childhood Zhu Jingjian was fond of learning. Coming from a scholar-official family, it is not unusual that she acquired the basic skills of the literati: playing the lute and chess, calligraphy, and painting.
Zhu Jingjian was forced to teach the children of noble families in Luoyang, after her husband's death. It was probably also in Luoyang that Zhu Jingjian first pursued Buddhist teachings in earnest. She could find no one from whom to learn more. Eventually, the monk Fashi, who was thoroughly versed in the sutras and practices, established a temple at the West Gate of Luoyang during the Jianxing reign period (313-317) and Zhu Jingjian visited him. She gained great insight into Buddhist truths after listening to Fashi expound the law. Her faith grew stronger and she was motivated to seek further the benefit of the law. She borrowed sutras from Fashi to study at home and from these, she gained the central principle of Buddhist truth.
She asked Fashi what the terms bhiksu and bhiksuni meant in the sutras. Fashi replied that in India there were two monastic assemblies - the male and the female - and the female assembly was known as bhiksuni, or nuns. In China, however, there were at that time no books of rules for nuns. Fashi said that a woman could receive the basic ten rules from a monk, but that without a female monastic instructor she would have no one to rely on in her training as a nun. Zhu Jingjian immediately shaved her head to receive the ten basic rules. With twenty-four other women who shared the same aspiration, she established the Zhulin Monastery at the West Gate of Luoyang. Since they did not have a female monastic teacher, they consulted Zhu Jingjian, whose instruction was said to have been superior even to that of venerable monks.
During the Xiankang reign period (335-342), the monk Sengjian obtained a copy of a nun’s ritual and rule book of the Mahasanghika sect and by 357 this book had been translated into Chinese in Luoyang. Zhu Jingjian and four other women received the precepts according to the newly translated rule book on a boat on the Si River. Zhu Jingjian is therefore honored as the first Chinese Buddhist nun. Zhu Jingjian followed the precepts closely and was diligent in learning Buddhist teachings. She received a great many donations from the faithful but distributed them as soon as she received them, always satisfying the needs of others before her own. She died at the end of the Shengping reign period (357-361) in her seventieth year.
Zhu Jingjian married young and was widowed early. Her husband’s name or what he did is unknown.