[4] In China, he was popularly known as the "Meditation Master from India" (Tiānzhú chánshī 来自印度的冥想大师).
[3] Buddhabhadra was a student of the Kashmiri meditation master Buddhasena, who was a Mahayanist and a Sarvastivadin.
[5] While staying at Mount Lu (廬山), Buddhabhadra translated some meditation manuals at the behest of monk Huiyuan.
[5][6] This tradition of Xuangao (centered around the Binglingsi cave) has been seen by scholars like Imre Hamar as a precusor to the Huayan school proper.
[6] Furthermore, Hamar theorizes that Xuangao along with the master Daorong cooperated to compose the apocryphal sutras Brahma's Net Sūtra (Fanwang Jing T1484) and the Sutra of the Original Acts that Adorn the Bodhisattva (Pusa yingluo benye jing T1485) which stand at the beginning of the development of the Huayan tradition.
[7] The meditation texts of Buddhabhadra also influenced Chan Buddhism, and some of their methods were criticized by later sources like Shenhui and the authors of the Lidai fabao ji.