Khuông Việt

Khuông Việt (匡越, 933–1011), birth name Ngô Chân Lưu, is the fourth-generation patriarch of the Vô Ngôn Thông line of Vietnamese Thiền and the figure regarded as Vietnam's first national Buddhist preceptor^[1]. Born into the Ngô clan that briefly held the Vietnamese throne after the fall of Chinese rule in 939, he ordained at the Khai Quốc temple under Vân Phong and became one of the most learned monks of his generation^[1]. King Đinh Tiên Hoàng granted him the title Khuông Việt Đại Sư ('Great Master Who Helps Vietnam') in 971 — the first time a Vietnamese Buddhist had been formally appointed to the post of national preceptor — and he served the early Đinh, Lê, and Lý courts as a religious-political advisor. The Thiền Uyển Tập Anh records his correspondence with the Song-dynasty Chinese ambassadors, in which he composed Buddhist verses that established Vietnamese literary Buddhism as a peer tradition to its Chinese parent^[2].