John C. Maraldo

The Saga of Zen History and the Power of Legend

This engaging book challenges both uncritical devotees and critical historians of Zen for the ways they have misplaced truths in the tradition known by that name. It first shows how current Chan/Zen scholarship itself is a practice that echoes the legendary verse about Zen as a “separate transmission outside the scriptures, not relying on written words,” and then it develops the category of legend as an alternative to both history and myth, fact and fabrication. The author not only analyzes the different meanings of “transmission”; he also clarifies what historically was dependent upon the transmissions. He suggests new approaches to the study of Zen rituals and relics as well as Zen texts, while also recalling an essential sense of Zen that eludes texts. The Saga of Zen History is a paradigm-changing work, one that that makes critical scholarship more responsive to self-examination and one that is also accessible to general readers.

“The English-speaking world received Zen originally bundled in concepts that rhetorically defied unraveling. Very few other religious traditions have come with such intricately inbuilt triggers against outside scholarly unwrapping. This makes the history of Zen, and its telling, all the more fascinating and in need of an intelligently written and provokingly reflective book such as John C. Maraldo’s The Saga of Zen History & the Power of Legend.”  —Rossa Ó Muireartaigh

“Maraldo’s book should have a lasting influence on our understanding of Zen.… Maraldo has pointed the way with his analysis of Chan/Zen scholarship. Let us hope that his epistemological critique will be sufficiently convincing to engage present and future researchers in exploring these new territories.”  —Bernard Faure

Available from Amazon US, UK, JP, &c. Also available in e-book format for Apple and Kindle.