Construction of the Genealogy of Eccentric Monks Based on the Historical Materials of Chan Buddhism in the Song Dynasty—From Enlightened Masters in Chan Buddhism, Sages, to Saints

Regarding the Chan Buddhism lamp records from the Song Dynasty and starting from Jing De Zhuan Deng Lu, the category of “enlightened masters in Chan Buddhism” 禪門達者 was listed separately, meaning a separate category was established for eccentric monks who pretended to be crazy, had unknown inheritance and miraculous deeds, and were difficult to classify. The following lamp records named this category of eccentric monks as “sages” 散聖, or “saints” 應化聖賢, which constructed another historical genealogy for the special Chan Buddhism eccentric monks. Moreover, the early lamp records included mostly idiosyncratic mad monks from previous dynasties. Since the Southern Song Dynasty, Chan Buddhism historical materials included many sages from the current dynasty. Therefore, this study mainly examines how the genealogy of Chan Buddhism eccentric monks was constructed in Song Dynasty Chan Buddhism lamp records, including quotations, and organizes the images of eccentric monks in the Song Dynasty, as written in Chan Buddhism historical materials, in order that the meaning of existence of these enlightened masters, sages, saints, etc., included in the genealogy of Song Dynasty eccentric monks in the history of Chan Buddhism can be reflected.