Patriarchs on Paper

The truth of Chan Buddhism&mdash;better known as &ldquo;Zen&rdquo;&mdash;is regularly said to be beyond language, and yet Chan authors&mdash;medieval and modern&mdash;produced an enormous quantity of literature over the centuries.&#160;To make sense of this well-known paradox, <I>Patriarchs on Paper</I>&#160;explores several genres of Chan literature that appeared during the Tang and Song dynasties (c. 600&ndash;1300), including genealogies, biographies, dialogues, poems, monastic handbooks, and koans. Working through this diverse body of literature, Alan Cole details how Chan authors developed several strategies to evoke images of a perfect Buddhism in which wonderfully simple masters transmitted Buddhism&rsquo;s final truth to one another, suddenly and easily, and, of course, independent of literature and the complexities of the Buddhist monastic system.&#160;Chan literature, then, reveled in staging delightful images of a Buddhism free of Buddhism, tempting the reader, over and over, with the possibility of finding behind the thick fa&ccedil;ade of real Buddhism&mdash;with all its rules, texts, doctrines, and institutional solidity&mdash;an ethereal world of pure spirit.&#160; <I>Patriarchs on Paper</I>&#160;charts the emergence of this kind of &ldquo;fantasy Buddhism&rdquo; and details how it interacted with more traditional forms of Chinese Buddhism in order to show how Chan&rsquo;s illustrious ancestors were created in literature in order to further a wide range of real-world agendas.