Huineng, remembered as the illiterate Sixth Patriarch of Chan, dies in Guangdong; the Platform Sutra told in his name teaches sudden awakening and becomes the charter of the Southern school, and with it of Zen as the world later receives it.
The Event
- Date
- 713 (exact)
- Era
- Classical; Standard periodization of Buddhist history
- Location
- Guangzhou and Shaozhou; today Guangdong, China
- Traditions
- Buddhism
- Streams
- Zen
- Key figures
- Huineng
- Key texts
- Platform Sutra
Primary Sources
- The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch
Secondary Sources
- Dumoulin, Zen Buddhism: A History (Macmillan, 1994)
- Buswell and Lopez, The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism (Princeton, 2014)
Provenance: HIST-0416; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-27.
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