The Hongzhou School of Chan Buddhism in Eighth- through Tenth-Century China

2 MAZU DAOYI’S DISCIPLES

Chapter Two MAZU DAOYI’S DISCIPLES 21 Mazu Daoyi was a successful teacher with the largest number of disciples whose names are known in the history of Chinese Chan Buddhism. The ZTJ states that Mazu had more than one thousand followers,1 while the SGSZ records a number of more than eight hundred.2 These numbers must have included both religious followers and lay devotees who attended Mazu’s sermons but were not necessarily his disciples. The “Daoyi Stūpa” records the names of eleven of his disciples: Huihai, Zhizang, Gaoying, Zhixian, Zhitong, Daowu, Huaihui, Weikuan, Zhiguang, Chongtai, and Huiyun.3 They can be regarded as having become either the most important or most senior disciples by the time Mazu passed away. The ZTJ states that Mazu had eighty-eight close disciples, while the CDL puts the number at 139.4 The latter actually lists 138 names. Based on this list and other early sources, Yanagida Seizan compiled a new list with a total number of 153.5 During the early post-rebellion period, in the extensive area of south China, the relationships between Chan masters and lineages were harmonious and interactive. Many disciples of Mazu also learned from other Chan masters such as Jingshan Faqin (714–792), Niutou Huizhong (683–769), and Shitou Xiqian, and the earliest biographies of these disciples did not usually state who their main teachers were. This fact indicates a lack of sectarian color and lineage affiliation during this period. Nevertheless, three of these disciples, Tianhuang Daowu, Danxia Tianran, and Yaoshan Weiyan, unfortunately became the targets of later sectarian contention, and controversies over the question of whether their true master was Mazu or Shitou have continued since the Song dynasty. The period during which Mazu Daoyi’s immediate disciples were active began approximately with the reign of Emperor Dezong (r. 780–805), when the Tang government began to recover from the rebellion and put forward a series of economic, political, and military reforms, and ended in the reign of Emperor Wenzong (r. 824–840), just before the Huichang persecution of Buddhism—that is, roughly from the last two decades of the eighth century through the first four decades of the ninth century. It was through the suc- 22 CHAN BUDDHISM IN EIGHTH- THROUGH TENTH-CENTURY CHINA cessful spread of these disciples throughout the nation and their cooperative efforts of striving for orthodoxy that the Hongzhou lineage developed from a local, southern community to an officially acknowledged, full-fledged school. In this chapter, I first examine Tianhuang, Danxia, and Yaoshan individually in order to resolve the controversies over their masters and lineages. The results of this study not only determine their apprenticeship with Mazu, but also provide a significant prerequisite for a new investigation of the division of the Nanyue-Mazu line and the Qingyuan-Shitou line and the rise of the various houses during the late Tang and Five Dynasties, and consequently for a deconstruction of the traditional Chan genealogy, which will be the focus of chapter six. I then examine Yanagida’s list to add and delete some names according to early sources, and consequently produce a new list of Mazu’s disciples with relevant data. T IANHUANG DAOWU The case of Tianhuang is the most complicated. It involves not only the question of his mentor and lineage but also the controversy over the alleged existence of another Tianwang Daowu. During the mid-Northern Song there appeared a “Tianwang Daowu chanshi bei” (Epitaph of Chan Master Tianwang Daowu) that was attributed to Qiu Xuansu and said that this Daowu was Mazu’s disciple exclusively. From the Song to the Qing, controversies have continued about whether there were two Daowu in Jingzhou at the same time of the mid-Tang and also about the Yunmen and Fayan houses descended from which Daowu. Modern scholars have also focused on these controversies. Nukariya Kaiten, Chen Yuan, and Ui Hakuju summarize in detail the discussions among premodern scholars, and all speculate that the epitaph attributed to Qiu Xuansu was a Song forgery.6 Ge Zhaoguang tries to protect this epitaph, but he does not provide any supporting evidence.7 Based on those scholars’ studies, I carefully examine early sources in order to present a convincing conclusion. Early sources of Tianhuang contradict each other in an intricate way. Both the ZTJ and CDL place Tianhuang in the genealogical diagram of the Shitou line.8 The hagiography of Shitou in the SGSZ, which is based on the...