Semi-legendary South Indian monk traditionally counted as the twenty-eighth patriarch of Indian Chán and the first patriarch of Chinese Chán. Active in southern China and the Northern Wèi capital Luòyáng during the late fifth and early sixth centuries; biographical material in Yáng Xuànzhī’s 楊衒之 Luòyáng qiélán jì 洛陽伽藍記 (mid-sixth-c.) places him at the Yǒngníng Sì 永寧寺. Later Chán hagiography (Daoxuan’s 道宣 Xù gāo sēng zhuàn 續高僧傳, eighth-century Lèngqié shī zī jì 楞伽師資記, and the Bǎolín zhuàn 寶林傳) elaborated him into the originator of “wall-gazing” (biguān 壁觀) Chán and ascribed to him the Èr rù sì xíng lùn 二入四行論 (the only text most scholars accept as containing genuine teachings) plus a large body of Dūnhuáng apocrypha including the present Tiānzhúguó Pútídámó chánshī lùn (KR6v0002, KR6v0024, KR6v0025) and Xī zhēng lùn (KR6v0004).