 | |
| Title | Chán master |
| Personal life | |
| Born | 638 |
| Died | 689 |
| Religious life | |
| Religion | Buddhism |
| School | Chán |
| Senior posting | |
| Teacher | Daman Hongren |
| Predecessor | Daman Hongren |
Faru (Chinese:法如;pinyin:Fǎrù;Wade–Giles:Fa-ju;Japanese:Hōnyo) was a prominentBuddhist monk during theTang dynasty inChina. He was originally a student of Huimíng, but this teacher reportedly sent Faru to East Mountain to study underDaman Hongren. Under Hongren, with whom he studied for sixteen years, Faru is traditionally thought to have receiveddharma transmission. After his time on East Mountain, Faru left toLuoyang, spending some time atShaolin Monastery and helping to re-establish its prominence.[1]
Faru is notable in the history of Zen because the concept of a lineage, a fundamental notion in the identity of the school, seems to have originated with either him or his immediate followers. His epitaph speaks of an unbroken line of mind to mindtransmission fromGautama Buddha toBodhidharma, the founder of Zen, to Faru's teacher Hongren, and on to Faru himself. Other students of Hongren, however, claimed that they were the next point on the lineage and not Faru, however. These includedLaoan, but most importantlyYuquan Shenxiu, who had a competing epitaph claiming he was the next patriarch of the lineage after Hongren. In modern Zen institutions, however, neither Shenxiu or Faru is traditionally considered the true heir of Hongren; that distinction lies withHuineng, a monk far less notable than Faru or Shenxiu who rose to prominence only after his death thanks to an extensive campaign by his studentHeze Shenhui.[2]
For a detailed analysis of Faru's claim to legitimacy, see Cole, Alan. 2009.Fathering your Father: The Zen of Fabrication in Tang Buddhism. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press (in particular chap. 4 and 5).
 | This Chinese religion-related biographical article is astub. You can help Wikipedia byexpanding it. |
.svg) | This article about a member of the Buddhist clergy is astub. You can help Wikipedia byexpanding it. |