Punyayashas

Punyayashas, the eleventh patriarch, was the teacher of Ashvaghosha, one of the most celebrated figures in the entire Buddhist tradition. Punyayashas is described as a skilled teacher who could identify the hidden depths of his students and awaken them through precisely suited instruction. His meeting with Ashvaghosha is recorded as a pivotal moment in which persistent philosophical debate was dissolved by direct pointing to the nature of mind.

According to Chan accounts, Ashvaghosha initially challenged Punyayashas with arguments and doctrinal questions, but Punyayashas responded with such directness and clarity that Ashvaghosha recognized his own fundamental error: he had been seeking the Dharma outside himself. The encounter transformed a brilliant intellectual into an awakened practitioner, and the transmission passed forward.