"Albert Welter's groundbreaking study of the Linji lu provides a model of comprehensive and innovative historical research. Unlike earlier studies of the Zen master Linji, Welter focuses directly on this classic text, showing how both the text and the image of the Zen master in it developed in the course of Chan history. Linji wrote nothing, and in the two and a half centuries between the end of his life and the emergence ofthe Linji lu as we know it, the Chan tradition and the image of one of its most powerful masters went through several stages of significant change. Carefully placing Linji's text in its rapidly changing historical context, Welter's systematic study sheds new light on classical Chan literature and the emergence of thisfascinating form of Buddhism." --Dale S. Wright, Occidental College, author of Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism"This is an outstanding piece of scholarship that investigates in a convincing and compelling way a very important element in the development of Chinese Chan Buddhism, that is, the recorded sayings of master Linji --arguably one of the two or three most significant and widely read Chan sources -- and the social historical context of how the text came to be created. In addition to providing a detailed textual analysis of the Linji lu in its differenteditions and redactions, Albert Welter show how this helps us understand the formation of Chan writings from the Song dynasty dealing with eminent Tang patriarchs." --Steven Heine, Florida International University, author of White Collar Zen"The Linji lu and the Creation of Chan Orthodoxy clearly succeeds in what it sets out to do: it accounts for the rise of Linji Chan and the yulu genre in the context of Song dynasty Buddhism, culture, and politics.

I woudl recommend this book to any reader, specialist or nonspecialist, who appreciates fine-grained and closely ducmented historical analysis of the premodern Buddhist institution." --H-Net Reviews".this is a remarkable book."--Mario Poceski, University of Florida".very detailed and carefully researched work."--Dirck Vorenkamp, Lawrence University.