 Rather than follow the more typical path of monk-scholars, Zhiyan left public life, spending some 20 years wandering the countryside and preaching to the laity. He returned to Chang’an in the late 640s, whereupon he attracted many disciples—chief among them Fazang (who would later become the Third Patriarch) and the Korean monk Uisang (625–702), who took Huayan to Korea. In 661, Prince Pei, son of Emperor Gaozu and Empress Wu, appointed Zhiyan as a chief lecturer. (This appointment may have been a factor in granting Fazang the access to the royal court that was so important in his later career.) Zhiyan spent his remaining years teaching and refining his earlier work with scholarly detail. 