During the late Ming and Qing dynasties, masters of the Sanfeng Lineage transmitted a mass of dharma-heirs as well as abundant textural works, including recorded sayings, lamp transmission stories, principles and essentials of Chan practice, commentaries on sutras, collections of poems and literature, repentance scriptures, etc. This paper examines newly discovered scriptures, cross-verifying the “Digital Archive of Chinese Buddhist Temple Gazetteers” and “Buddhist Studies Person Authority Databases”, and then provides a genealogy of the Sanfeng lineage, including 14 generations and 539 dharma heirs. Moreover, this paper compiles a list of publications and works attributed to masters of the Sanfeng lineage which involves flexible and diverse expediencies in Chan practice that help pupils to manifest their mind. Finally, instead of focusing on individual masters’ works and thoughts as preliminary studies have shown, this paper describes the contour of thoughts and main features of textual diversity in relation to the Sanfeng Lineage.
Keywords:
Buddhism during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Chan School, Sanfeng lineage of Linji School, Genealogy of Chan, Catalogue of Sanfeng School Texts