Readings of the Platform Sūtra ed. by Morten Shlütter and Stephen F. Teiser, and: The Platform Sūtra of the Sixth Patriarch: The Text of the Tun-huang Manuscript by Philip Yampolsky (review)

Before reviewing Readings of the Platform Sūtra, I will give an overview of the history of Chinese Chan Buddhism by referring to John R. McRae’s (1947–2011) succinct Seeing through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Buddhism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). McRae demythologized and objectively outlined the history of Chinese Chan/Zen/Sŏn Buddhism in four periods: (1) proto-Chan (ca. 500–600); (2) early Chan (ca. 600–900); (3) middle Chan (ca. 750–1000); and (4) Song dynasty Chan (ca. 950–1300). He does not include history after the Song dynasty up to the present.

Modern scholars, including McRae, Philip B. Yampolsky (1920–1996), and contributors to Readings of the Platform Sūtra, deconstructed the general picture of Chinese Chan Buddhism romanticized retrospectively by Song-dynasty Chan historians and text compilers and accepted traditionally among Chan Buddhists. They academically investigated the historical development of Chan Buddhism and removed the mythologized and mystified religious elements in early Chinese Chan Buddhism, in particular, and Chinese Chan Buddhism, in general, attempting to understand it objectively.

First, proto-Chan Buddhism designates ascetic practices and meditation of the practitioners including Bodhidharma, Huike, and their direct disciples. They meditated based on the theory of Buddha-nature at multiple locations in north China. Since then, modern scholars removed the religiously fabricated elements in proto-Chan Buddhism and academically reconstructed the characteristics of proto-Chan Buddhism based on Treatise on the Two Entrances and Four Practices, attributed to Bodhidharma; traditional Chan texts; and a few Dunhuang documents.

Second, the development of early Chan Buddhism began with meditators such as Daoxin (580–651), Hongren (601–674), Shenxiu (606?–706), Huineng (638–713), and Shenhui (648–758), as well as the practitioners of northern, southern, and Oxhead factions. Each Chan group began to practice its different methods of meditation and develop its own lineage theory as its unifying ideology. Modern scholars can outline early Chan Buddhism through the Platform Sūtra of the Sixth Patriarch, numerous Dunhuang manuscripts, and traditional Chan sources. The Platform Sūtra is a fascinating text attributed to Huineng, the legendary founder of Chan Buddhism, and the only text that attained sūtra status among the texts that Chinese made.

Third, the major figures of middle Chan are Mazu (709–788), Shitou (710–790), and Linji (d. 867). The antecedent masters of the Five Houses, coming from the Hongzhou and Hubei factions that originated from Mazu and Shitou, respectively, began to use encounter dialogues as a major mode of practice and discourse between masters and disciples. Chan Buddhists used to define middle Chan as a golden age of Chinese Buddhism by uncritically adopting the expressions of Song dynasty Chan texts, which in some cases turned into stereotypes.

Fourth, the major figures of Song dynasty Chan are Dahui (1089–1163), a leader of the Linji school, and Hongzhi (1091–1157), a leader of the Caodong school. Song dynasty Chan historians retrospectively depicted Tang dynasty Chan masters in highly ritualized Song dynasty settings. The mature Song dynasty forms of Chinese Chan Buddhism continued into the modern era without serious alterations. McRae described Song dynasty Chan as the greatest flourishing of Chan. Even though Song dynasty Chinese Buddhism was basically ecumenical, it institutionally arranged Chan lineages over other doctrinal and vinaya lineages.

Of the four stages that McRae introduced, Schlütter and Teiser’s Readings of the Platform Sūtra is...