Korea Journal of Buddhist Studies ISSN:1598-0642(Print) 불교학연구

In his 1975 essay "Silent-Illumination and Koan-Introspection in Zen-Buddhism," Seizan Yanagida柳田聖山 suggests that "the criticism by Dahui大慧(1089-1163)was aimed at Zhenxie Qingliao眞歇淸了(1088-1151)." This opinion that has been widely accepted is based upon three pieces of historical records respectively found in Zhu-zi Yulei朱子語類, Dahui Nianpu大慧年譜 and Da-hui Shu大慧書.This paper challenges Yanagida`s above opinion from the following three aspects. First of all, none of those three supports represented by Yanagida can be regarded as direct evidence to identify Qingliao as the target of Dahui`s criticism. Furthermore, Yanagida does not mention another record saying that Dahui even praised Zhenxie onece during his lecture at the latter. Finally, if Dahui actually had leveled his criticism at Zhenxie, we could have found some traces of their debate in their recorded sayings.In conclusion, it is considered that there was not any sharp confrontation between Dahui and Zhenxie, and the criticism by Dahui was much possible to be aimed at the followers of Zhenxie more than the master himself.