Sengcan
| Jianzhi Sengcan | |
|---|---|
| School | Chan |
| Personal | |
| Nationality | Chinese |
| Born | 496? China |
| Died | 606 |
| Senior posting | |
| Title | Third Chinese Patriarch |
| Predecessor | Dazu Huike |
| Successor | Dayi Daoxin |
Jianzhi Sengcan (Chinese: 鑑智僧璨; Hànyǔ Pīnyīn: Jiànzhì Sēngcàn; Wade–Giles: Chien-chih Seng-ts'an; Japanese: Kanchi Sōsan, died 606) is known as the Third Chinese Patriarch of Chán after Bodhidharma and thirtieth Patriarch after Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha.
He is considered to be the Dharma successor of the second Chinese Patriarch, Dazu Huike (大祖慧可; Hànyǔ Pīnyīn: Dàzǔ Huìkě; Wade–Giles: Ta-tsu Hui-k’o; Japanese: Taiso Eka). Sengcan is best known as the putative author of the famous Chán poem, Xinxin Ming 信心銘 (Hànyǔ Pīnyīn: Xìnxīn Míng; Wade–Giles: Hsin-hsin Ming; Inscription on Faith in Mind).
The year and place of Sengcan’s birth is unknown, as is his family name.
It is said that Sengcan (old spelling: Tsang Tsan) was over forty years old when he first met Huike in 536 and that he stayed with his teacher for six years. (Dumoulin, p 97) It was Huike who gave him the name Sengcan (“Gem Monk”).
The Transmission of the Lamp entry on Sengcan begins with a koan-like encounter with Huike:
There are discrepancies about how long Sengcan stayed with Huike. The Transmission of the Lamp records that he “attended Huike for two years” after which Huike passed on the robe of Bodhidharma and Bodhidharma’s Dharma (generally considered to be the Lankavatara Sutra), making him the Third Patriarch of Chan.
According to Dumoulin, in 574 the accounts say that he fled with Huike to the mountains due to the Buddhist persecution underway at that time. However, the Lamp records claim that after giving Sengcan Dharma transmission, Huike warned Sengcan to live in the mountains and “Wait for the time when you can transmit the Dharma to someone else.” as a prediction made to Bodhidharma (Huike’s teacher) by Prajnadhara, the twenty-seventh Chan ancestor in India, foretold of a coming calamity.
After receiving transmission, Sengcan lived in hiding on Wangong Mountain in Yixian and then on Sikong Mountain in southwestern Anhui. Thereafter, for ten years he wandered with no fixed abode.
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