Prajñādhara was the twenty-seventh Brahmin patriarch

Patriarch

Originally a patriarch was a man who exercised autocratic authority as a pater familias over an extended family. The system of such rule of families by senior males is called patriarchy. This is a Greek word, a compound of πατριά , "lineage, descent", esp...

 of Indian Buddhism

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

, according to the Chinese Chan

Zen

Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...

 lineage. He traveled around India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 preaching the Buddha

Gautama Buddha

Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...

's teachings. He was the guru

Guru

A guru is one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom, and authority in a certain area, and who uses it to guide others . Other forms of manifestation of this principle can include parents, school teachers, non-human objects and even one's own intellectual discipline, if the...

, or teacher, of Bodhidharma

Bodhidharma

Bodhidharma was a Buddhist monk who lived during the 5th/6th century AD. He is traditionally credited as the transmitter of Ch'an to China, and regarded as the first Chinese patriarch...

.

Prajnatara may have been a woman, per an oral tradition in southern India. . According to Osho

Osho

Oshō is the Japanese reading of the Chinese he shang , meaning a high-ranking Buddhist monk or highly virtuous Buddhist monk. It is also a respectful designation for Buddhist monks in general and may be used with the suffix -san...

, Bodhidharma was initiated by an enlightened woman, named Pragyatara and it was she who asked him to go to China.
The Denkoroku

Denkoroku

, written by Keizan Jokin Zenji in 1300, is a kōan collection of 53 enlightenment stories based on the traditional legendary accounts of the Zen transmission between successive masters and disciples in the Sōtō Zen Buddhist lineage from Shakyamuni Buddha to Japanese Zen Master Ejō, a first...

: Record of the Transmission of Light by Keizan Jokin Zenji relates the following legendary exchange between Prajnatara and Bodhidharma. Prajnatara: "What is it that is formless amongst things?"
Bodhidharma: "Formlessness is unborn." Prajnatara: "What is the highest amongst things?"
Bodhidharma: "The Actual Nature is the highest."

External links

• Guru Prajnatara
• Osho, Zen: Its history and tecahings, 2004, Bridgewater Book, UK