worth while to note that the list of the names of these twenty-eight
patriarchs contains many eminent scholars of Mahayanism, or the later
developed school of Buddhism, such as Acvaghosa,[FN#19]
Nagarjuna,[FN#20] Kanadeva,[FN#21] and Vasubhandhu.[FN#22]


[FN#17] The incident is related as follows: When the Buddha was at
the assembly on the Mount of Holy Vulture, there came a Brahmaraja
who offered the Teacher a golden flower, and asked him to preach the
Dharma. The Buddha took the flower and held it aloft in his hand,
gazing at it in perfect silence. None in the assembly could
understand what he meant, except the venerable Mahakacyapa, who
smiled at the Teacher. Then the Buddha said: "I have the Eye and
Treasury of Good Dharma, Nirvana, the Wonderful Spirit, which I now
hand over to Mahakacyapa." The book in which this incident is
described is entitled 'Sutra on the Great Brahman King's Questioning
Buddha to Dispel a Doubt,' but there exists no original text nor any
Chinese translation in the Tripitaka. It is highly probable that
some early Chinese Zen scholar of the Sung dynasty (A.D. 960-1126)
fabricated the tradition, because Wang Ngan Shih (O-an-seki), a
powerful Minister under the Emperor Shan Tsung (Shin-so, A.D.
1068-1085), is said to have seen the book in the Imperial Library.
There is, however, no evidence, as far as we know, pointing to the
existence of the Sutra in China. In Japan there exists, in a form of
manuscript, two different translations of that book, kept in secret
veneration by some Zen masters, which have been proved to be
fictitious by the present writer after his close examination of the
contents. See the Appendix to his Zen-gaku-hi-han-ron.

[FN#18] The following is the list of the names of the twenty-eight