Tì-ni-đa-lưu-chi
Tì-ni-đa-lưu-chi
Unknown – 594
Vinītaruci (d. 594) is the master whom the fourteenth-century Vietnamese hagiographical compendium Thiền Uyển Tập Anh names as the founder of Vietnamese Thiền[1]. According to that later source he was a South Indian monk who travelled to Chang'an and studied with the Third Patriarch Sengcan before continuing south, settling at Pháp Vân temple in what is now Bắc Ninh province, and founding a lineage of twenty-eight generations over the next six centuries[1]. Modern scholarship reads the Thiền Uyển Tập Anh's genealogy as a retrospective construction shaped by fourteenth-century doctrinal concerns rather than a contemporaneous record, but it preserves the earliest Vietnamese account of the tradition's beginning and remains its foundational text[2].
Names
Disciples of Tì-ni-đa-lưu-chi
Teachers and lineage of Tì-ni-đa-lưu-chi
Teacher / root master:
Teachings
When Vinītaruci arrived in Vietnam and settled at Pháp Vân temple, the monk Pháp Hiền came to him and asked: 'What is the teaching the Third Patriarch transmitted to you in China?' Vinītaruci said: 'The Third Patriarch said nothing to me.' Pháp Hiền said: 'Then what did you bring south?' Vinītaruci held up one finger. Pháp Hiền bowed and asked: 'Is this the dharma?' Vinītaruci said: 'The dharma is this; your mind is this. Where is the gap?'
- proverbThe Mind-Seal Has No Form
The mind-seal has no form, yet it is not hidden. It is nearer than your own hand, yet it cannot be grasped. Hand it on and it is not diminished; receive it and it is not increased.
- proverbNothing to Attain
If there were a thing to attain, you would lose it again at death. Because there is nothing to attain, what you find now you can never lose.
- proverbLanguage Beyond Language
Sanskrit, Chinese, Vietnamese — three rivers, one ocean. The student who waits for the perfect translation will die thirsty on the riverbank.
- proverbPass On Without Words
What I bring from the south of India is not a doctrine, not a name, not a robe. It is a silence that travels with the breath, and is given again whenever the breath reaches the next breath.
Other masters in Thiền
Master Record Sources
- biographyCuong Tu Nguyen — medieval Vietnamese Buddhism scholarship
- datesLê Mạnh Thát — Vietnamese Buddhist history publications