Yunju Daoying (; ) was a

Zen 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 ...

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

monk and teacher during the late

Tang Dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdom ...

. According to traditional biographies, he became a monk when he was 25 at Yanshou Temple, although he later left to study at Mount Nan before finally taking on

Dongshan Liangjie Dongshan Liangjie (807–869) (; ) was a Chan Buddhist monk of the Tang dynasty. He founded the Caodong school (), which was transmitted to Japan in the thirteenth century (Song-Yuan era) by Dōgen and developed into the Sōtō school of Zen. ...

as his teacher on Mount Dong. After receiving dharma transmission from Dongshan, he went to a place called Three Peak Hermitage, and finally to Mount Yunju, northeast of modern

Nanchang Nanchang (, ; ) is the capital of Jiangxi Province, People's Republic of China. Located in the north-central part of the province and in the hinterland of Poyang Lake Plain, it is bounded on the west by the Jiuling Mountains, and on the east ...

in Jiangxi Province. Here he established Jenru Temple, where he taught for 30 years and eventually attracted 1,500 students. Amongst modern

Caodong Caodong school () is a Chinese Chan Buddhist sect and one of the Five Houses of Chán. Etymology The key figure in the Caodong school was founder Dongshan Liangjie (807-869, 洞山良价 or Jpn. Tozan Ryokai). Some attribute the name "Cáodòng" ...

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 Dòngsh� ...

practitioners, Tongan Daopi is commonly regarded as Yunju's successor through whom the

teaching descended. This view comes from Huihong's ''Sengbao zhuan'', which was completed in 1119, long after Yunju's life. Contemporary information, however, disagrees with this version of history. The ''Zutang ji'' (Patriarch's Hall Record), which was completed in 952, covers the life of Yunju Daoying, but does not mention Tongan Daopi as his disciple. The ''Zutang ji'' does, however, record someone with the name Tongan asking a question to Yunju Daoying. The scholar Ui Hakuju has written this could likely refer to Tongan Daopi. However, in the ''

Transmission of the Lamp ''The Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp'' (), often referred to as ''The Transmission of the Lamp'', is a 30 volume work consisting of putative biographies of the Chan Buddhist and Zen Buddhist patriarchs and other prominent Buddhist ...

'', which was compiled around 1004, Tongan Daopi is mentioned as a student of Yunju. The ''Transmission of the Lamp'' also claims that Tongan had no students himself. In other words, the

school did not descend through Yunju as is commonly thought, but rather through another student of

, namely Jufeng Puman. The scholar Morten Schlütter suggests that the lineage according to the ''Transmission of the Lamp'' is more likely correct because Dayang Jingshuan, who in Huihong's version of the lineage is a descendant of Yunju, is recorded in the ''Transmission of the Lamp'' as being descended through Jufeng Puman. Dayang was close with Wang Shu, one of the compilers of ''Transmission of the Lamp'', suggesting that it is unlikely that an error would have been made therein about his own lineage.

References

{{S-end Chan Buddhist monks 830 births 902 deaths Tang dynasty Buddhists