Gayashata

Saṃghayaśas (transliterated *Gayashata* in the Chinese sources), eighteenth patriarch in the Chan list, is named in the *Jǐngdé Chuándēng Lù* as the disciple of Saṃghanandi and teacher of Kumārata^[1]. He belongs to the legendary stratum of the late Indian lineage and has no extant attestation independent of the Chan transmission-of-the-lamp literature.

The traditional account describes a young brahmin from western India whom Saṃghanandi recognized through a sequence of natural-imagery exchanges (a wind-bell, a falling leaf) and brought into the lineage. Dumoulin notes that the use of natural-image *gōng'àn*-like vignettes for these middle-list patriarchs anticipates the literary style of mature Chan encounter dialogue^[2].