Closely allied to it but reckoned as distinct is the school called the Hua-yen-tsung[840] because it was based on the Hua-yen-ching or Avatamsakasutra.  The doctrines of this work and of Nagarjuna may be conveniently if not quite correctly contrasted as pantheistic and nihilistic.  The real founder and first patriarch was Tu-Fa-Shun who died in 640 but the school sometimes bears the name of Hsien-Shou, the posthumous title of its third Patriarch who contributed seven works to the Tripitaka.[841] It began to wane in the tenth century but has a distinguished literary record.

The Lu-tsung or Vinaya school[842] was founded by Tao Hsuan (595-667).  It differs from those already mentioned inasmuch as it emphasizes discipline and asceticism as the essential part of the religious life.  Like the T’ien-t’ai this school arose in China.  It bases itself on Indian authorities, but it does not appear that in thus laying stress on the Vinaya it imitated any Indian sect, although it caught the spirit of the early Hinayana schools.  The numerous works of the founder indicate a practical temperament inclined not to mysticism or doctrinal subtlety but to biography, literary history and church government.  Thus he continued the series called Memoirs of Eminent Monks and wrote on the family and country of the Buddha.  He compiled a catalogue of the Tripitaka, as it was in his time, and collections of extracts, as well as of documents relating to the controversies between Buddhists and Taoists.[843] Although he took as his chief authority the Dharmagupta Vinaya commonly known as the Code in Four Sections, he held, like most Chinese Buddhists, that there is a complete and perfect doctrine which includes and transcends all the vehicles.  But he insisted, probably as a protest against the laxity or extravagance of many monasteries, that morality and discipline are the indispensable foundation of the religious life.  He was highly esteemed by his contemporaries and long after his death the Emperor Mu-tsung (821-5) wrote a poem in his honour.  The school is still respected and it is said that the monks of its principal monastery, Pao-hua-shan in Kiangsu, are stricter and more learned than any other.

The school called Chen-yen (in Japanese Shin-gon), true word, or Mi-chiao,[844] secret teaching, equivalent to the Sanskrit Mantrayana or Tantrayana, is the latest among the recognized divisions of Chinese Buddhism since it first made its appearance in the eighth century.  The date, like that of the translation of the Amida scriptures is important, for the school was introduced from India and it follows that its theories and practices were openly advocated at this period and probably were not of repute much earlier.  It is akin to the Buddhism of Tibet and may be described in its higher aspects as an elaborate and symbolic pantheism, which represents the one spirit manifesting himself in a series of emanations and reflexes.  In its popular and unfortunately commoner aspect it is simply