A Talk on Two Tang Monks with the Same Name "Daowu"

Glad to be invited by Prof. Feng Guodong  冯国栋 to Zhejiang University to give a talk on part of my research. This is taken from my first book. Basically, Chan monks in the Northern Song dynasty found that there were two Tang monks named "Daowu": one was Tianwang Daowu 天王道悟 and the other Tianhuang Daowu 天皇道悟. The importance of this discovery is that Longtan Chongxin 龙潭崇信 from whom Yunmen 云门 and Guiyang 溈仰 Chan sects were derived now became the disciple of Tianwang Daowu rather than Tianhuang Daowu. Because of this change, Yunmen and Guiyang Chan sects were shifted to Mazu's line of transmission.

This dispute became the subject of a controversy in the seventeenth century which I discussed in my first book. Yinyuan's teacher Feiyin Tongrong 费隐通容 wrote the "infamous" Strict Transmission of the Five Chan Schools (Wudeng yantong 五灯严统) which was burnt in China. However, Yinyuan reprinted it in Japan.