 When he was young, he studied with Falang (法朗, 507-581) at the Xinghuang Temple () in Nanjing, and studied the three Madhyamaka treatises (The Treatise on the Middle Way, The Treatise on the Twelve Gates, and The One-Hundred-Verse Treatise) which had been translated by Kumarajiva more than a century before, and it is with these texts that he is most often identified.He became the head monk at Xinghuang Temple upon Falang's death in 581.At age 42, he began travelling through China giving lectures, and ultimately settled at Jiaxing Temple, in modern Shaoxing (), Zhejiang province.