Vinitaruci

Vinitaruci (d. 594) was an Indian Buddhist monk who founded the first Thiền school in Vietnam, establishing the oldest continuous meditative Buddhist lineage in the country. Born into a Brahmin family in South India, he traveled across western India seeking the Dharma before journeying eastward. Around 573–574 CE, he arrived in China and, according to traditional accounts, encountered Jianzhi Sengcan, the Third Patriarch of Chinese Chan, receiving dharma transmission.

Around 580 CE, Vinitaruci traveled to Vietnam and settled at Pháp Vân Temple in the ancient administrative center of Luy Lâu, near modern Hanoi. There he accepted disciples and taught dharma, translating Buddhist scriptures and emphasizing the Prajñā ("wisdom of emptiness") tradition and direct transmission of awakening from master to disciple. His chief disciple, Pháp Hiền, succeeded him and constructed a stupa for his relics after his death in 594. The Vinitaruci school remained active for over six centuries, becoming one of the most influential Buddhist groups in Vietnam by the tenth century, particularly under the great patriarch Vạn Hạnh. Thích Nhất Hạnh considered Vinitaruci's connection to the Third Patriarch significant, as it gave Vietnamese Buddhism a claim to the earliest and most direct transmission from the Indian Chan patriarchs.