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| Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, D.Litt. Manual of Zen Buddhism IntraText CT - Text |
Besides these mythical personages the Zen monastery gives shelter to some other historical characters deeply connected not only with Zen but with Buddhism as a whole. Bodhidharma as founder of Zen Buddhism naturally occupies a chief seat of honour beside the Buddha Sakyamuni. With Japanese Zen followers, however, the founder of a given temple is more highly honoured, and in each of the principal Zen institutions in Japan there is a special hall dedicated to the founder of that particular monastery, where an oil-lamp is kept burning all day and night. Bodhidharma is a unique figure and may be identified wherever he is. He is one of the favourite subjects for the Zen masters to try their amateurish brush. Kwannon is perhaps another such subject.
Fudaishi (Fu Ta-shih), also known as Zenne Daishi (Shan-hui), 493-564, was a contemporary of Bodhidharma. Although he does not belong to the orthodox lineage of Zen transmission, his life and sermons as recorded in the Transmission of the Lamp (Ch'uan-teng Lu)1 are full of Zen flavour, so to speak. His famous gatha is well known to all Zen students.2 Tradition makes him the inventor of what is known as Rinzo (luntsang), which is a system of revolving shelves for keeping the Chinese Tripitaka. For this reason he, together with his two sons, is set up in the Buddhist library as a kind of god of literature.
The Zen monastery harbours many old eccentric characters of whom the most noted of a Chinese origin are Kanzan (Han-shan) and Jittoku (Shih-te).3 They are vagabond poet-ascetics. Another belonging to this group of
characters is Hotei (Pu-tai).1 That Hotei plays quite a different rôle in Japanese Buddhism from what he does in Chine, I have explained in my article in the Eastern Buddhist, VI, 4, "Impressions of Chinese Buddhism".
Shotoku Taishi (574-622) was really one of the most remarkable figures in the cultural history of Japan, and it is no wonder that the Japanese Buddhists pay special monastery buildings. One of the legendary stories circulating in Japan with regard to Bodhidharma is that he came to Japan after he had finished his work in China and was found in the form of a miserable beggar at Kataoka Yama, near Nara. Shotoku Taishi met him there and it is said that they exchanged poems.