CHAN. The Chan school of Buddhism developed in China beginning in the sixth century CE, spread to Korea, Japan, and Vietnam beginning in the ninth century, and has moved to Europe, the United States, and other parts of the world in modern times. The name Chan (Sŏn in Korean, Thiền in Vietnamese, and Zen in Japanese) is the Chinese transliteration of the Indian word for concentration meditation, dhyāna in Sanskrit and jhāna in Pali (and similar forms in other prakrits or vernacular Indian languages).

Although Chan is thus named after a type of Buddhist meditation, it does not by any means have a monopoly on the practice of meditation in East Asia, nor is its own identity as a school limited to meditation alone. The best key to understanding Chinese Chan is actually the genealogical quality of its historical identity and style of spiritual...