It is widely known that the Putidamo Wuxinglun (Bodhidharma’s Doctrine of Understanding), representing the seminal text of Bodhidharma, was disseminated to Japan by Yuanzhen (814–891) and is now recorded in the Damodashi sanlun (Three Doctrines of Bodhidharma) and the Shaoshi liu men. However, in academic circles, most contemporary scholars maintain that this text is not an authentic work of Bodhidharma but rather was written during the middle Tang period by individuals inside one of the orders of the Chan school, in order to falsely authenticate or validate the teachings of their group’s doctrines as in a direct line with Bodhidharma’s original transmission. Thus, the author believes that this text holds an important position in understanding the early philosophical ideologies of Chan’s historical establishment and development in China. This paper mainly focuses on the discussion of xin (mind), as it is explained in the “Doctrine of Understanding,” and seeks to pinpoint the connections between the text “Doctrine of Understanding” along with both Er ru sixinglun changjuanzi and Guanxin lun, other early Chan texts, in order to elucidate some possible reasons for the emergence of the ideas regarding xin (mind) as it is discussed in the Bodhidharma text.
