successor to Bodhidharma.  It appears that we do not
　　   possess any historically reliable sources for either
　　   the life or the teachings of Hui-neng.
　　　　   The period  from the death of Hui-neng  (c.713)
　　   until the persecution  of Buddhism under the Emperor
　　   Wu-tsung  (842~45) is the Golden Age of Ch'an, about
　　   which   chronicles,  sayings,  and  kung-an   (koan)
　　   collections, preserved  mostly in Japan, furnish  us
　　   with  virtually  unlimited  information.   Only  the
　　   southern Ch'an schools survived and flourished after
　　   the  great  persecution, and these  traditions  were
　　   preserved  and given  their normative  shape  in the
　　   so-called  "Five Houses"  of Ch'an Buddhism.  Let us
　　   now consid  er some  of the factors  which  may have
　　   influenced the preservation and shaping of the Ch'an
　　   traditions in the aftermath of the great persecution
　　   of Buddhism in the later T'ang Dynasty.
　　　　   It  is  characteristic  of religious  movements
　　   under persecution that they preserve their histories
　　   in  forms  that  justify  both  the  occurrence   of
　　   persecution  and  the  survival  of  a "remnant."  A
　　   common   theme   of  such  histories   is  that   of
　　   repristination,  i.e;  that  the  surviving  remnant
　　   preserves  the original, pure  form of the religious
　　   ideal which is embodied in their tradition, and that
　　   the survival  of the pure remnant  is thus a mandate
　　   for  the  radical  reform  of  the  community.   The
　　   repristination  motif  thus  functions  both  as  an
　　   explanation  of why the persecution  came  upon  the
　　   community  (it  has  corrupted  the  purity  of  its
　　   tradition), and as a
 
 
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　　   justification of the remnant's survival.
　　　　   The  normative   Ch'an  tradition   shows  this
　　   tendency. Ch'an preserves a "secret" tradition which
　　   goes back to Shakyamuni himself, and which contains
　　   the "essence"of his own experience of enlightenmest,
　　   to be transmitted to future generations. This secret
　　   is  transmitted  directly  from  Master  to disciple
　　   through  non-verbal   communication,  based  on  the
　　   practice of seated meditation. The clear implication
　　   is that those sects which were destroyed  had either
　　   lost or corrupted the original, pure tradition, an d
　　   were  thus  purged  in order  to allow  the original
　　   dharma  to  emerge  from  the  purifying   fires  of