Buddhist philosophers developed what is to be distinctly designated as Chinese Buddhism. While this intellectual assimilation was going on on the one hand, the practical side of Buddhism was also assiduously studied. Some were followers of the Vinaya texts, and others devoted themselves to the mastery of dhyana. But what was here known as dhyana was not the dhyana of Zen Buddhism, it was a meditation, concentrating one’s thought on some ideas such as impermanence, egolessness of things, chain of causation, or the attributes of the Buddha, Even Bodhi-Dharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism, was regarded by historians as belonging to this class of dhyana-adepts, his peculiar merits as teacher of an entirely novel school of Buddhism were not fully appreciated. This was inevitable, the people of China were not yet quite ready to accept the new form; for they had only inadequately grasped the doctrine of Enlightenment in all its bearings. The importance of Enlightenment in its practical aspects, however, was not altogether overlooked in the maze of doctrinal intricacies. Chi-i (Chigi, 522–597), one of the founders of the T‘ien Tai school and the greatest Buddhist philosopher in China, was fully awake to the significance of dhyana as the means of attaining Enlightenment. With all his analytical powers, his speculation had room enough for the practice of dhyana. His work on “Tranquillisation and Contemplation” is explicit on this point. His idea was to carry out intellectual and spiritual exercises in perfect harmony, and not partially to emphasise either one of the two, Samādhi or Prajñā, at the expense of the other. Unfortunately, his followers grew more and more one-sided until they neglected the dhyana practice for the sake of intellection. Hence their antagonistic attitude later towards advocates of Zen Buddhism, for which however the latter were to a certain extent to be responsible, too. It was due to Bodhi-Dharma (died 528)[f47] that Zen came to be the Buddhism of China. It was he that started this movement which proved so fruitful among a people given up to the practical affairs of life. When he declared his message, it was still tinged with Indian colours, he could not be entirely independent of the traditional Buddhist metaphysics of the times. His allusion to the _Vajrasamādhi_ and the _Laṅkāvatāra_ was natural, but the seeds of Zen were sown by his hands. It now remained with his native disciples to see to it that these seeds grew up in harmony with the soil and climate. It took about two hundred years for the Zen seeds to bear fruit, rich and vigorous in life, and fully naturalised while retaining intact the essence of what makes up Buddhism.