Jushi 居士 [householder]

The original text is jushi 居士 [householder]. It denotes a variety of terms. Most broadly, it refers to any layperson, and most narrowly, to a wealthy and prestigious familial patriarch. In the late imperial Chinese context, jushi refers to people who practice Buddhism or Daoism in their homes instead of living in temples or monasteries. They also don’t need to fully obey all the religious restrictions, such as staying single or abstaining from eating meat. This usage is said to have originated in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, and later literati used jushi to refer to themselves.