Chanzongzushi Legend
01 · Historical Records
Since the Tang Huangmei has been a holy place of Chan Buddhism, with the two great ancestral courts of the Fourth Patriarch's Zhengjue Chan temple and the Fifth Patriarch's Chan temple. In such authoritative historical works and literary classics as the Tang Record of the Passing On of the Lamp of Wude, the Continued Lives of Eminent Monks, The Dream of the Red Chamber and The Golden Lotus similar legends are quoted, showing the great influence of folk literature on writers' literature; the Hubei volume of the Chinese Folk Story Collection, Chinese Chan Temples edited by Ji Xianlin and Chinese Buddhist Tales all include a great many Huangmei Chan patriarch legends; more than a hundred legends such as The Immortal Tests the Fourth Patriarch Daoxin, Emperor Taizong Bestows the Purple Robe, The Fifth Patriarch Leaves Home, The Fifth Patriarch Appoints the Worthy, Liu Gongquan Inscribes Characters and The Sixth Patriarch Huineng have been transmitted orally to the present. For more than a thousand years the Huangmei Chan patriarch legends, elaborated with a quality of everyday life, of the common people and of the ideal and with a local colour, have left such customary practices as the third-of-the-third-month temple fair, the nine-morning washing and eating mustard-cake; they interpenetrate in such folk art forms as music, painting, dance and craft and are vividly embodied in calligraphy and painting, film and television, the Lecture Room and drama.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Huangmei Chan patriarch legends are a folk version of Buddhist literature, most of these stories arising in the Sui and Tang. With the two temples standing side by side as the finest in the world, history has the saying that the Chan groves of Qi and Huang are the finest in the world and that on great Buddhist matters one asks Huangmei. The lofty Buddhist status of the Fourth and Fifth Patriarchs and the legendary course of their lives produced over a thousand years a series of legends about their birth, growth, leaving home, cultivation and transmission of the Dharma. These legends arose in Huangmei and spread far and wide throughout the world; the classics and selections of Japan and Korea all include them, and they are legends of world influence.
The Immortal Tests the Fourth Patriarch Daoxin
One of the representative Huangmei Chan patriarch legends.
The Fifth Patriarch Leaves Home
One of the representative Huangmei Chan patriarch legends.
The Sixth Patriarch Huineng
One of the representative Huangmei Chan patriarch legends.
The Third-of-the-Third-Month Temple Fair and the Mustard-Cake Custom
The folk customs that grew up along with the Chan patriarch legends.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Huangmei Chan patriarch legends take the two great Chan ancestral courts of the Fourth Patriarch's temple and the Fifth Patriarch's temple in Huangmei county, Hubei, as their centre and take the lives and deeds of the Fourth Patriarch Daoxin and the Fifth Patriarch Hongren as their content; they circulate in Huangmei and its surroundings and spread far to Japan, Korea and elsewhere.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Chanzongzushi Legend.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
As an important event in the history of Buddhism, the Huangmei Chan patriarch legends are important corroboration of the founding of the East Mountain Dharma Gate; centring on the real historical figures of the Chan patriarchs, the stories themselves carry a meaning beyond the Buddhist world and have great influence in both the monastic and lay worlds, once profoundly influencing people's value orientation, thoughts and feelings and way of thinking; in Chinese Chan studies they have almost the important place that the Bible has for Christianity, and they have potential significance for building spiritual civilisation, moral education and a harmonious society and give profound enlightenment for reforming current affairs and creating a situation.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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