Dhritaka

Dhritaka was the fifth Indian Chan patriarch, receiving transmission from Upagupta. Little biographical detail survives from historical sources, and his life sits in the legendary stratum of early Indian Buddhism. The Chan tradition credits him with maintaining the purity of the wordless transmission amid the growing complexity of scholastic Buddhism.

He is said to have recognized the depths of the Dharma beyond intellectual formulation and to have emphasized direct experience over doctrinal elaboration. His transmission to Michaka represents another link in the unbroken chain connecting the historical Buddha to the later flowering of Chan in China.