六Liù祖Zǔ坛Tán经Jīng · The Platform Sutra

The Liù Zǔ Tán Jīng (Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch) records the teachings of Huineng (638–713 CE), the Sixth Patriarch of Chan Buddhism and the figure traditional accounts cast as the founder of the Chan lineage in China. It is the only major sutra composed in Chinese rather than translated from Sanskrit — which makes it the foundational text of Chan (Japanese: Zen) in its own voice, distinct from the Indian Prajñāpāramitā texts (Heart, Diamond) that the early Chinese Buddhists were translating. The sutra is structured as autobiography and discourse: Huineng's origin story as an illiterate woodcutter who awakened on hearing the Diamond Sutra, his succession to the patriarchate, and his teachings on sudden enlightenment (顿悟) and inherent Buddha-nature. Read alongside the Heart and Diamond, it shows Chan thinking through its own Chinese inheritance rather than receiving Indian doctrine. Placeholder: the Chinese exists (Dunhuang and later recensions) but is not yet ingested.