After the death[FN#49] of the Sixth Patriarch (A.D. 713), the
Southern Zen was divided into two schools, one being represented by
Tsing Yuen (Sei-gen), the other by Nan Yoh (Nan-gaku.) Out of these
two main schools soon developed the five[FN#50] branches of Zen, and
the faith made a splendid progress. After Tsing Yuen and Nan Yoh,
one of the junior disciples of the Sixth Patriarch, Hwui Chung
(E-chu), held an honourable position for sixteen years as the
spiritual adviser to the Emperor Suh Tsung (A.D. 756762) and to the
Emperor Tai Tsung (A.D. 763-779). These two Emperors were
enthusiastic admirers of Zen, and ordered several times the Kachaya
of Bodhidharma to be brought into the palace from the Pao Lin
Monastery that they might do proper homage to it. Within some one
hundred and thirty years after the Sixth Patriarch, Zen gained so
great influence among higher classes that at the time of the Emperor
Suen Tsung (A.D. 847-859) both the Emperor and his Prime Minister,
Pei Hiu, were noted for the practice of Zen. It may be said that Zen
had its golden age, beginning with the reign of the Emperor Suh
Tsung, of the Tang dynasty, until the reign of the Emperor Hiao Tsung
(1163-1189), who was the greatest patron of Buddhism in the Southern
Sung dynasty. To this age belong almost all the greatest Zen
scholars[FN#51] of China.


[FN#49] There exists Luh Tan Fah Pao Tan King
(Roku-so-ho-bo-dan-kyo), a collection of his sermons. It is full of
bold statements of Zen in its purest form, and is entirely free from
ambiguous and enigmatical words that encumber later Zen books. In
consequence it is widely read by non-Buddhist scholars in China and
Japan. Both Hwui Chung (E-chu), a famous disciple of the Sixth
Patriarch, and Do-gen, the founder of the Soto Sect in Japan, deny