Patriarchs on Paper ─ A Critical History of Medieval Chan Literature

Chan Buddhism—better known as “Zen”—produced an enormous amount of literature, and yet many Chan advocates, medieval and modern, insist that Chan and its truths can’t be found in language or literature. Patriarchs on Paper explores this paradox by considering several genres of Chan literature that appeared during the Tang and Song dynasties (c. 600–1300), including genealogies, biographies, dialogues, poems, monastic handbooks, and koans. Looking carefully at this body of literature, Alan Cole shows how Chan authors gradually constructed, in ever more artful portrayals, images of the perfectly simple masters of the past, best known for their freedom from literature and cultural norms. Patriarchs on Paper explores how this kind of “fantasy Buddhism” interacted with its more traditional Chinese forms, and in doing so sheds new light on how Chan’s illustrious ancestors were created, in literature, in order to satisfy a wide range of agendas.

Alan Cole is an independent scholar who has taught at Lewis & Clark College, Harvard University, the University of Illinois, the University of Oregon, and the National University of Singapore.