Bodhidharma’s teaching was Indian but it harmonized marvellously with Taoism and Chinese Buddhists studied Taoist books.[796] A current of Chinese thought which was old and strong, if not the main stream, bade man abstain from action and look for peace and light within.  It was, I think, the junction of this native tributary with the river of inflowing Buddhism which gave the Contemplative School its importance.  It lost that importance because it abandoned its special doctrines and adopted the usages of other schools.  When Taoism flourished under the Sung Emperors it was also flourishing and influenced art as well as thought, but it probably decayed under the Yuan dynasty which favoured religion of a different stamp.  It is remarkable that Bodhidharma appears to be unknown to both Indian and Tibetan[797] writers but his teaching has imparted a special tone and character to a section (though not the whole) of Far Eastern Buddhism.  It is called in Chinese Tsung-men or Ch’an-tsung, but this word Ch’an[798] is perhaps better known to Europe in its Japanese form Zen.

Bodhidharma is also accounted the twenty-eighth Patriarch, a title which represents the Chinese Tsu Shih[799] rather than any Indian designation, for though in Pali literature we hear of the succession of teachers,[800] it is not clear that any of them enjoyed a style or position such as is implied in the word Patriarch.  Hindus have always attached importance to spiritual lineage and every school has a list of teachers who have transmitted its special lore, but the sense of hierarchy is so weak that it is misleading to describe these personages as Popes, Patriarchs or Bishops, and apart from the personal respect which the talents of individuals may have won, it does not appear that there was any succession of teachers who could be correctly termed heads of the Church.  Even in China such a title is of dubious accuracy for whatever position Bodhidharma and his successors may have claimed for themselves, they were not generally accepted as being more than the heads of a school and other schools also gave their chief teachers the title of Tsu-shih.  From time to time the Emperor appointed overseers of religion with the title of Kuo-shih,[801] instructor of the nation, but these were officials appointed by the Crown, not prelates consecrated by the Church.

Twenty-eight Patriarchs are supposed to have flourished between the death of the Buddha and the arrival of Bodhidharma in China.  The Chinese lists[802] do not in the earlier part agree with the Singhalese accounts of the apostolic succession and contain few eminent names with the exception of Asvaghosha, Nagarjuna, Deva and Vasubandhu.