The Sanlun, or Three Treatise, school is generally regarded as having been founded in China by the monk Jizang (吉藏, 549–623). Within the Chinese Madhyamaka tradition, Jizang stands out as the figure who most clearly shaped and articulated the school as a distinct lineage. His role was not merely that of a commentator, but of a systematizer who drew together the key strands of Madhyamaka thought into a coherent Chinese framework. In this sense, he may be seen as the one who gave the school its recognizable form and identity.

At the same time, the roots of Sanlun do not arise in a vacuum. The school rests upon the foundational work of Kumārajīva, whose translations of the central Madhyamaka texts supplied the very scriptural basis from which Sanlun could emerge. Jizang’s founding activity thus unfolds against the backdrop of these earlier translations, which opened a gateway through which Madhyamaka thought entered Chinese intellectual and spiritual life. To speak of Jizang as founder is therefore to acknowledge both his creative organization of the tradition and the indispensable groundwork laid by Kumārajīva.