Fǎhǎi 法海 (fl. early to mid 8th century), Táng-dynasty Chán monk, disciple of Huìnéng 惠能 (638–713) and the principal named compiler of the Tánjīng 壇經 (KR6q0082, T48 n2007, Dūnhuáng recension). Styled in the Tánjīng signature line shòu wúxiàng jiè hóngfǎ dìzǐ 受無相戒弘法弟子 (“disciple-transmitter of the dharma who has received the formless precepts”). The terminal editorial notice of the Dūnhuáng recension records his transmission of the text to his fellow-disciple Dàojì 道漈, who in turn transmitted it to Wùzhēn 悟真 at the Fǎxìng sì 法興寺 on Cáoxīshān in Lǐngnán — the four-generation transmission Huìnéng → Fǎhǎi → Dàojì → Wùzhēn bounds the Dūnhuáng text’s editorial stratum to roughly the early-to-mid 8th century.
Fǎhǎi has no DILA authority entry; the two figures DILA does record under the name 法海 — A000712 (a Liu-Sòng foreign translator of the Jìdiào yīn suǒ wèn jīng) and the alternate-name reference within A009275 浮丘 (a Táng義解 monk of Tàiyuán) — are both distinct from the Platform-Sūtra compiler. The near-absence of independent biographical material on Fǎhǎi outside the Tánjīng is a significant point in the modern textual-historical debate: Hú Shì (1930s) and subsequently Yanagida Seizan argued that the Hézé 荷澤 (Shénhuì 神會, 684–758) school had projected the Fǎhǎi-compilation narrative onto an earlier composite text in order to establish Southern-School editorial authority; later scholars have partially rehabilitated the historical figure. The tradition’s later hagiographic accretions identify Fǎhǎi with various other Táng monks of the name, but none of these identifications is securely grounded.
Works in the Kanripo corpus: KR6q0082 Tánjīng (Dūnhuáng recension) only. The later Yuán Zōngbǎo recension (KR6q0083) also carries the Fǎhǎi-compilation attribution in its opening, but the recension is Yuán-editorial and Fǎhǎi’s editorial role on it is fictive.