That Zen was the thing Chinese minds wanted to have when they thoroughly comprehended the teaching of Buddhism is proved by the two incontestable historical facts: first, after the establishment of Zen, it was this teaching that ruled China while all the other schools of Buddhism, except the Pure Land sect, failed to survive; and secondly, before Buddhism was translated into Zen it never came into an intimate relation with the native thought of China, by which I mean Confucianism. * * * * * Let us see first how Zen came to rule the spiritual life of China. The inner sense of Enlightenment was not understood in China, except intellectually, in the earlier days of Buddhism. This was natural, seeing that it was in this respect that the Chinese mind was excelled by the Indian. As I said before, the boldness and subtlety of Mahayana philosophy must have fairly stunned the Chinese, who had, before the introduction of Buddhism, practically no system of thought worthy of the name, except moral science. In this latter they were conscious of their own strength; even such devout Buddhists as I-ching (Gijō) and Hs‘üan-chuang (Genjō) acknowledged it, with all their ardour for the Yogācāra psychology and the Avatamsaka metaphysics; they thought that their country, as far as moral culture was concerned, was ahead of the land of their faith or at least had nothing to learn from the latter. As the Mahayana Sutras and Shastras were translated in rapid succession by able, learned, devout scholars, both native and Indian, the Chinese mind was led to explore a region where they had not ventured very far before. In the early Chinese biographical histories of Buddhism, we notice commentators, expounders, and philosophers far outnumbering translators and adepts in dhyana so called. The Buddhist scholars were at first quite busily engaged in assimilating intellectually the various doctrines propounded in Mahayana literature. Not only were these doctrines deep and complicated but they were also contradicting one another, at least on the surface. If the scholars were to enter into the depths of Buddhist thought, they had to dispose of these entanglements somehow. But if they were sufficiently critical, they could do that with comparative ease, which was however something we could never expect of those earlier Buddhists; for even in these modern days critical Buddhist scholars will in some quarters be regarded as not quite devout and orthodox. They all had not a shadow of doubt as to the genuineness of the Mahayanist texts as faithfully and literally recording the very words of the Buddha, and therefore they had to plan out some systems of reconciliation between diverse doctrines taught in the Scriptures. This meant to find out what was the primary object of the Buddha’s appearance in the world ignorant, corrupted, and given up to the karma of eternal transmigration. Such efforts on the part of