is a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

term for a lineage chart in

Zen Buddhism Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

and some other Japanese schools, documenting the "bloodline" of succession of various masters or listing priests in a particular school. In Zen the kechimyaku theoretically links a student to all previous generations back to the

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was ...

himself. In the

Sōtō Sōtō Zen or is the largest of the three traditional sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism (the others being Rinzai and Ōbaku). It is the Japanese line of the Chinese Cáodòng school, which was founded during the Tang dynasty by Dòngshān L ...

school of

medieval Japan The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to prehistoric times around 30,000 BC. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millennium BC when new inventi ...

it became commonplace for the kechimyaku to be administered to

lay Lay may refer to: Places *Lay Range, a subrange of mountains in British Columbia, Canada *Lay, Loire, a French commune *Lay (river), France *Lay, Iran, a village *Lay, Kansas, United States, an unincorporated community People * Lay (surname) * ...

students for such rituals as the

jukai The Lay Buddhist Ordination (, Japanese: , Korean: ''sugye'' (수계) refers to the public ordination ceremony wherein a lay follower of Zen Buddhism receives certain Buddhist precepts. The particulars of the ceremony differ widely by country a ...

ceremony. Traditionally this document is administered at the time of

Dharma transmission In Chan Buddhism, Chan and Zen Buddhism, dharma transmission is a custom in which a person is established as a "successor in an unbroken Lineage (Buddhism), lineage of teachers and disciples, a spiritual 'bloodline' (''kechimyaku'') theoretica ...

in Soto Zen, during a shiho ceremony. In the Jodo Shinshu sect the kechimyaku is meant to demonstrate "spiritual descent", and not a blood heritage.Plutschow, 153

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* * Zen {{zen-stub

See also

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