Master Shen-yen carries the Dharma transmission from the Linji and Caodong lineages of the Chan tradition. Then in his late life, he integrated these two and established the “Dharma Drum Lineage”.
Nonetheless, for the transmission of the Jiao-san line of the Caodong lineage, which he received the transmission from Ven. Master Dong-chu, did that originally stem from the Yun-men or Gu-shan line? Which generation he is in this lineage? Master Shen-yen stated differently in his Dharma lineage transmission record and books. Nevertheless, which one would be correct? This is the main issue to settle in this paper.
To confirm the generation that the Master carries would certainly clear up the pedigree of「Dharma Drum Lineage」in the Caodong lineage chart. Therefore, the writer tries to clarify the relationship of Dharma lineage between the Gu-shan and Jiao-san lines at the beginning of Ching Dynasty, and to further investigate the ambiguity among various lines in the Caodong lineage at the end of Ming Dynasty. After some examination, the writer suggests firstly looking into the Caodong lineage stated in the Gu-shan Dharma lineage record , the《Edited Starry Lamp Record》, then the《Jiao-san Zhi》, published by Master Ming-shan, as the core evidence for the discussion on the issue of the Caodong Dharma lineage transmission received by Master Yun-men Yuan-cheng of the Ding-hui Monastery at Jiao-san.
In addition, the Gui-yuan Chan Monastery, which stems from the same dharma lineage origin with the Jiao-san line, has recently published the《Gui-yuan Monastery Zhi》, providing quite some clues as well.
Furthermore, in the writer’s previous paper〈Looking into the「Dharma Name」system instructed by Master Shen-yen to Dharma heirs as lay people for the lineage transmission〉, the method of “confirming the relationship of transmission by Dharma names (Chinese : Fa-ming) and Dharma first name (Chinese: Fa-hao)” is to prevent from mixing up the tenures of the abbots with the generation of Dharma lineage transmission. This approach is evidently feasible and could also be considered as an important method for the survey on the ordinal number of the transmitted generation.
By analyzing the Caodong lineage transmission in the period from end of Ming Dynasty to the beginning of Chin Dynasty, clarifying the historical causes and conditions on the transmission of Jiao-san line, and collating their Dharma origin and variances, to verify Master Shen-yen’s statements, one may realize the Master’s expression with flaws due to the lack of original information about the transmission from the Jiao-san line of Caodong lineage. The Master has to frequently mentioned for the Dharma lineage transmission on the 「Dharma transmission record」or the documents during his dedicating to the globalization of Chan Buddhism. Thereby, whenever different historical information has been discovered, different statements in the《Complete Collection of Dharma Drum》as well as the「Dharma lineage transmission record of the Dharma Drum lineage」would be presented. As such, we would be able to comprehend the caution and difficulty of the Master’s during his establishing the「Dharma Drum lineage」, along with the evolution processing.
