By this “bearing of fruit” did Dharma prophesy the full development of Zen later in China? The “five petals” are supposed to mean the five Zen Fathers in China after Dharma when Zen came to be recognised as a branch of Buddhism with a message of its own. Whether this gāthā was really a prophetic one by Dharma himself, or whether it was composed by some Zen historian after the sixth patriarch Hui-nêng (Yeno), we have no means to decide. The one thing is certain historically that Dharma’s teaching began to be naturalised in China about two hundred years after him and assimilated by her people in a manner best suited to their mental idiosyncracies. Zen in the form we have it to-day could not mature anywhere outside China. India was too metaphysical, or too given up to mystic imagination. It was the home for the Yuishiki (Yogācāra), the Shingon (Mantra school), the Kegon (Avataṁsaka), or the Sanron (Śūnyatā or Mādhyamika). As for Zen, it needed a mind which had already been deeply steeped in the Laotzŭan ideas and feelings and yet could not detach itself from the details of daily life. Aloofness, romanticism, a certain practical temperament, and yet an even, steady, well-balanced character—these were needed to develop Zen to its present form. That is to say, if Mahayana Buddhism as was expounded by Nāgārjuna and Aśvaghosha, and in the _Vimalakīrti_, _Prajñāpāramitā_, and other Sutras, especially in the _Laṅkāvatāra_, were not worked upon by Chinese genius, Zen as such could not at all have come into existence.