The Mystique of Transmission : On an Early Chan History and Its Context

Wendi Adamek provides a close reading of the late-eighth-century Chan/Zen Buddhist "Lidai fabao ji" (Record of the Dharma-Jewel Through the Generations) and provides its first English translation.

The work combines a history of the transmission of Buddhism and Chan in China with an account of the eighth-century Chan master Wuzhu in Sichuan.

Adamek compares the text with related works, tracing changes in the doctrines and practices associated with the transmission of authority in medieval Chinese Buddhism.

While Adamek is concerned with familiar Chan themes like patriarchal genealogies and the ideology of sudden enlightenment, she also highlights topics that make this work distinctive: formless practice, the inclusion of female practitioners, the influence of Daoist metaphysics, and connections with early Tibetan Buddhism.