Genshin ［源信］ (942–1017): Also known as Eshin. A priest of the Tendai school in Japan. A native of Yamato Province, he entered Enryaku-ji, the head temple of the Tendai school on Mount Hiei, in 950 and was ordained in 954. There he studied under Ryōgen who later became the eighteenth chief priest of the temple. He was also called Eshin because he practiced at a temple called Eshin-in on Mount Hiei. Valuing the practice of meditation, Genshin founded the Eshin branch of the Tendai school. He also practiced Nembutsu, meditating on Amida Buddha and chanting his name, while he read and recited such sutras as the Lotus, Amida, and Wisdom sutras. In 985 he completed The Essentials of Rebirth in the Pure Land, a work that had contributed considerably to the establishment and development of the Pure Land school in Japan. Later he wrote The Essentials of the One Vehicle Teaching, in which he clarified the one vehicle teaching of the Lotus Sutra and the universal possession of the Buddha nature by all people, thereby refuting the three vehicle teachings.