For a long time, Shenhui’s Platform Sermon of the Priest of Nanyang on Direct Realization of One’s Nature According to the Chan Doctrine of Emancipation through the Sudden Teaching (Nanyang heshang dunjiao jietuo chanmen zhiliaoxing tanyu 南陽和上頓教解脫禪門直了性壇語) has been considered as a work written in a relatively early period of Shenhui’s life, because of its use of the name “the priest of Nanyang”. But according to references in The Record of the Dharma-Jewel Through the Generations (Lidai fabao ji 歷代法寶記), we should consider it rather as a work edited between the fourth and the eighth years of Tianbao (天寶,745–749).
If it was edited after his residence at the Heze temple (荷澤寺) in Luoyang, why was Shenhui called “the priest of Nanyang” (南陽和尚)? The answer may be obvious: There were many priests at the Heze temple, so, if one used the name “the priest of Heze temple” (荷澤和尚), nobody could identify it as Shenhui. Therefore, they usually called him “the priest who came from Nanyang” (南陽和上).
