the teacher.

[FN#41] He died in A.D. 651-that is, forty-five years after the
death of the Third Patriarch.



8. The Fifth and the Sixth Patriarchs.

Tao Sin transmitted the Law to Hung Jan (Ko-nin), who being educated
from infancy, distinguished himself as the Abbot of the Hwang Mei
Monastery at Ki Cheu. The Fifth Patriarch, according to his
biographer, gathered about him seven hundred pupils, who came from
all quarters. Of these seven hundred pupils the venerable Shang Sin
(Jin-shu) was most noted for his learning and virtues, and he might
have become the legitimate successor of Hung Jan, had not the Kachaya
of Bodhidharma been carried away by a poor farmer's son of Sin Cheu.
Hwui Nang, the Sixth Patriarch, seems to have been born a Zen
teacher. The spiritual light of Buddha first flashed in his mind
when he happened to hear a monk reciting a sutra. On questioning the
monk, be learned that the book was
Vajracchedika-prajnya-paramita-sutra,[FN#42] and that Hung Jan, the
Abbot of the Hwang Mei Monastery, was used to make his disciples
recite the book that it might help them in their spiritual
discipline. Hereupon he made up his mind to practise Zen, and called
on Hung Jan at the Monastery. "Who are you," demanded the Fifth
Patriarch, "and whence have you come?" "I am a son of the farmer,"
replied the man, "of Sin Cheu in the South of Ta Yu Ling." "What has
brought you here?" asked the master again. "I have no other purpose
than to attain to Buddhahood," answered the man. "O, you, people of