Chán
Chinese Name
Hanyu Pinyin	Chán
Wade-Giles	Ch'an
Shanghainese	Zeu *
Cantonese IPA	sɪm4
Cantonese Jyutping	sim
Hanzi	禪
Jiantizi	禅
Sanskrit Name
Romanization	Dhyāna
Devanāgarī	ध्यान
Pali Name
Romanization	Jhāna
Devanāgarī	झान
Sinhala	ඣාන
Korean Name
Revised Romanization	Seon
McCune-Reischauer	Sŏn
Hangul	선
Hanja	禪
Japanese Name
Romaji	Zen
Hiragana	ぜん
Kanji	禅
Vietnamese Name
Quốc ngữ	Thiền (Thiền na)
Chữ Hán	禅那

Chán is a major school of Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhism. In Japan and the west, the school is known as Zen. It is known for its emphasis on meditation and everyday life ahead of philosophical and scriptural pursuits.

History

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According to tradition, the school was founded by the semi-legendary Indian monk Bodhidharma who, according to the Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall (952 CE), arrived in China c. 527 CE and taught at the Shaolin Monastery. Bodhidharma is traditionally believed to be the twenty-eighth patriarch in a lineage that extended all the way back to Shakyamuni Buddha by way of Mahakasyapa. Bodhidharma is recorded as having come to China to teach a "special transmission outside scriptures" which "did not rely upon words" His insight was then transmitted through a series of Chinese patriarchs, the most famous of whom was the Sixth Patriarch, Hui Neng.

Due to the conflicting stories of Bodhidharma that were recorded over the centuries, and the fact that none of the extant writings of the Shaolin temple from the time of the 6th-7th century CE mention him, modern theory suggests that Chan began to develop gradually in different regions of China as a grass-roots movement. According to this view, Chan was a reaction to a perceived imbalance in Chinese Buddhism toward the blind pursuit of textual scholarship with a concomitant neglect of the original essence of Buddhist practice: meditation and the cultivation of right view.

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