Zen in Medieval Vietnam: A Study and Translation of the Thiền Uyển Tập Anh

The book is divided into three major parts. Part I studies the Thiền Uyển Tập Anh from historical and textual perspectives. Chapter One discusses the text’s date, authorship, sources, and place in Vietnamese Buddhist history. Chapter Two gives a critical reading of the Thiền Uyển Tập Anh, especially its relationship to Chinese “transmission of the lamp” literature and its construction of Vietnamese Zen lineages. Chapter Three rereads the text as a source for understanding medieval Vietnamese Buddhism beyond the conventional Zen lineage framework. Part II provides a complete English translation of the Thiền Uyển Tập Anh. Part III includes appendixes, additional supporting data, biographies of eminent monks from other sources, the original Chinese text, notes, bibliography, and index. The author concludes that Zen in medieval Vietnam was less an institutionalized school like in China, Japan, or Korea, and more an imagined community shaped by elite religious memory, literary style, and Buddhist historical imagination.