CHINUL (1158–1210), also known as National Master Puril Pojo; founder of the indigenous Chogye school of Korean Sŏn (Chin., Chan; Jpn., Zen). Chinul was born in 1158 to a gentry family in the Koryŏ capital of Kaesŏng. When seven years old, he was ordained into the Sagul-san lineage of the Nine Mountains school of early Sŏn and soon distinguished himself in both meditation and scriptural study. Chinul became dissatisfied with the quality of practice within the degenerate Sŏn schools of his time, however, and increasingly turned for guidance to the sources that he considered to contain authentic information on Buddhist meditative culture: scriptures and commentaries and the records of early Sŏn and Chan masters. Prompted by his vision of the basic unity of Sŏn and the scriptural teachings (kyo; Chin., jiao), Chinul developed an approach to Buddhism that combined the theoretical aids of Hwa...