meditation. It claims that through consecrated meditation
may be attained supreme self-realisation. Meditation is one
of the six ways through which Buddhahood may be reached,
and the Zen sectarians affirm that Sakyamuni laid special stress
on this method in his later teachings, handing down the rules to
his chief disciple Kashiapa. According to their tradition Kashiapa,
the first Zen patriarch, imparted the secret to Ananda, who in
turn passed it on to successive patriarchs until it reached
Bodhi-Dharma, the twenty-eighth. Bodhi-Dharma came to
Northern China in the early half of the sixth century and was the
first patriarch of Chinese Zen. There is much uncertainty about
the history of these patriarchs and their doctrines. In its
philosophical aspect early Zennism seems to have affinity on
one hand to the Indian Negativism of Nagarjuna and on the
other to the Gnan philosophy formulated by Sancharacharya.
The first teaching of Zen as we know it at the present day must be
attributed to the sixth Chinese patriarch Yeno(637-713), founder
of Southern Zen, so-called from the fact of its predominance
in Southern China. He is closely followed by the great
Baso(died 788) who made of Zen a living influence in Celestial
life. Hiakujo(719-814) the pupil of Baso, first instituted the Zen
monastery and established a ritual and regulations for its
government. In the discussions of the Zen school after the
time of Baso we find the play of the Yangtse-Kiang mind
causing an accession of native modes of thought in contrast
to the former Indian idealism. Whatever sectarian pride may
assert to the contrary one cannot help being impressed by the
similarity of Southern Zen to the teachings of Laotse and the
Taoist Conversationalists. In the Tao-teking we already find
allusions to the importance of self-concentration and the