This dissertation is based on the Lidai fabao ji (Record of the Dharma-Jewel Through the Ages), a sectarian history of Buddhism in China composed by the disciples of the monk Wuzhu (714-774), the founder of the Bao Tang school of Chan/Zen in Sichuan.
The purpose of my study is to examine problems surrounding Buddhist transmission in China from the 4th-8th centuries. I compare the Lidai fabao ji version of Buddhist history to versions in other sources to elucidate conceptions of the transmission of Buddhist authority. I focus on transmission of the Buddhist precepts and include a survey of the precepts in the 4th-5th centuries. I also discuss the role the precepts played in Buddhist church-state relations.
The doctrines of the "Southern School" of Chan to which the Bao Tang claimed allegiance reinterpreted the Buddhist precepts. The antinomian implications of the doctrine of sudden enlightenment subverted the rationale for traditional Buddhist scriptures and practices, but it also created the need for another basis of authoritative transmission. The Southern School and its offshoots sought legitimacy by creating a lineage of patriarchs who were said to have passed down transmission from the Buddha himself.
Disparate modes of discourse are juxtaposed within the Lidai fabao ji, and I suggest that this reflects a broader historical transition. Both the interregnum of the Empress Wu (r. 684-705) and the rebellion of An Lushan (755) were followed by factional conflicts at court that redefined the configurations of Tang dynasty (618-906) authority. Following the Lidai fabao ji representations of spiritual legitimacy through the course of Chinese Buddhist history, I connect these representations with Tang political conditions.
From a wider perspective, this is a study of the vexed nature of Buddhist transmission itself. The conditions of the Bao Tang exemplify a perennial Buddhist dilemma, that of the instability of the transmission of teachings (Dharma) by an ordained community (Sangha) that is predicated upon individual experience of truth (Buddha/bodhi). The Chan challenge, maintaining a heritage within the orthodoxy of absolute immediacy, is but one form of this dilemma.
