The Power of Patriarchs

Morrison (religion, Middlebury College) examines the rise of the zu, or patriarch as a novel source of religious authority that emerged from the borrowing and adapting that created Chinese Buddhist. The notion of a lineage of authority passed down from the Buddha was most fully developed in the Chan tradition, she says, and spread to other traditions when Chan rose to dominate Chinese Buddhism during the Song Dynasty 960-1279. Her study pivots on the life, teaching, and writing of Qisong (1007-71). Topics include Buddhist motions of succession and transmission in India and pre-Chan China, the emergence of Chan lineage, the life of Qisong, his composition of the True Lineage texts and the campaign for their acceptance at court, a reading of the first fascicle of the Critical Essay on the True Lineage of the Transmission of the Dharma, and the Critical Essay revised and defended. As always with Brill, the quality of the physical volume matches that of the scholarship it contains. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Elizabeth Morrison, Ph.D. (2004) in Religious Studies, Stanford University, is Assistant Professor of Religion at Middlebury College.