"You spoke earlier of twenty-eight patriarchs of India who orally transmitted this Zen doctrine, but on what evidence is such a statement based? All the texts I have seen speak of twenty-four or, in some cases, twenty-three persons who transmitted the Buddha's teachings. Where is the translation that establishes the number of patriarchs as twenty-eight? I have never seen such a statement. This matter of the persons who were involved in the line of transmission of the Law is not something that one can simply write about arbitrarily. The Buddha himself left a clear record of what the line of transmission would be.
"Thus in the Fuhozo Den, it states: 'There will be a monk by the name of Aryasimha living in the kingdom of Kashmir who will strive vigorously to accomplish the Buddha's work. At that time the ruler of the kingdom will be named Mirakutsu, a man who gives himself up wholly to false views and has no reverence or faith in his heart. Throughout the kingdom of Kashmir he will destroy Buddhist temples and stupas and slaughter monks. He will take a sharp sword and use it to cut off Aryasimha's head. But no blood will spurt from his neck; only milk will come flowing out. With this, the line of persons who transmit the Law will be cut off.'
"To restate this passage: The Buddha says that, after he passes into nirvana, there will be a succession of twenty-four persons who will transmit his Law. Among these, the last to carry on the line of transmission will be a monk named Aryasimha, who will work to spread the Buddha's Law throughout the kingdom called Kashmir. The ruler of this state will be a man named King Dammira. He will be a person of false views and profligate ways, who has no faith in the Buddha's Law and no reverence for the monks. He will destroy Buddhist halls and stupas and use a sword to cut off the heads of the monks. And when he cuts off the head of the monk Aryasimha, there will be no blood in his neck; only milk will come flowing out. The Buddha declares that at this time the line of persons who transmit the Law will be cut off.
"The actual events did not in any way differ from the Buddha's predictions; the Venerable Aryasimha's head was in fact cut off. And as his head fell to the ground, so too did the arm of the king. "It is a gross error to speak of twenty-eight patriarchs. This is the beginning of the errors of the Zen sect. The reason that Hui-neng lists twenty-eight patriarchs in his Platform Sutra is that, when he decided to treat Bodhidharma as the first patriarch of Chinese Zen, he found that there were too many years between the time of Aryasimha and that of Bodhidharma. He therefore arbitrarily inserted the names of three Zen teachers to fill up the interval, so that he could make it seem as though the Law had been transmitted from India to China without any break or irregularity in the line of transmission. It was all a fabrication designed to make people respect the Zen teachings.
"This deception was put forth long ago in China. Thus, the eleventh volume of the Hochu states: 'In our [T'ien-t'ai] school, we recognize a transmission through twenty-three patriarchs. How could there be any error in this view? Concerning the claim that there were twenty-eight patriarchs, we can find no translation of a source that supports such a view. Recently Zen priests have even produced carvings in stone and woodblock engravings, each with a sacred verse attached, which represent the seven Buddhas and the twenty-eight patriarchs, handing these down to their disciples. Alas, how can there be such blatant falsehoods! If persons of understanding have any power at all, they should do everything they can to correct such abuses!' "This text is saying that to assert a transmission through a line of twenty-eight patriarchs and to produce stone carvings and woodblock engravings of them to indicate the line of transmission are highly mistaken undertakings, and that anyone who understands this should work to correct such errors. This is why I say that patriarchal Zen is a gravely erroneous affair.
"Earlier, you quoted a passage from the Daibontenno Mombutsu Ketsugi Sutra to prove your contention that Zen is 'a separate transmission outside the sutras.' But by quoting a sutra passage you were already contradicting your own assertion. Moreover, this sutra represents the provisional teachings, and, in addition, it is not listed either in the K'ai-yuan or the Chen-yuan era catalogues of Buddhist works. Thus we see that it is a work unlisted in the catalogues and a provisional teaching as well. Hence the scholars of our time do not refer to it; it cannot be used to prove anything."(Nichiren Daishonin).
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