We know that the Bodhi Patriarch used the Sanxing Cave of the Oblique Moon as a dojo to preach and teach here and recruit disciples, so how many disciples did he accept in total?
In the first episode of the original work, Sun Wukong, under the guidance of the woodcutter of Fangcun Mountain, came to the three-star cave of the slanting moon and worshiped the Bodhi Patriarch as his teacher. When Patriarch Bodhi learned that he did not have a name at that time, he decided to give him a name, saying, "There are twelve characters in my door, which are the twelve characters of Guang, Da, Zhi, Hui, Zhen, Ru, Xing, Hai, Ying, Wu, Yuan, and Jue. When it comes to you, it is just the word 'enlightenment'. Would you like to name it 'Monkey King'?"
From the words of Patriarch Bodhi, it is not difficult for us to find that Sun Wukong is his tenth generation disciple, which means that he has taught ten generations of disciples.
How many disciples are there in these ten generations?
When Sun Wukong met the woodcutter, the woodcutter once introduced the Bodhi Patriarch to him and said: "This mountain is called Lingtai Fangcun Mountain. There is a three-star cave in the mountain. There was an immortal in that cave named Patriarch Subodhi. There are countless disciples of the patriarch who went out, and I see that there are still thirty or forty people who have practiced from him. ”
These thirty or forty people are probably disciples of the same generation, so the first generation of disciples of Patriarch Bodhi is thirty or forty, and the ten generations of disciples are three or four hundred, in other words, he has accepted a total of three or four hundred disciples.
These three or four hundred disciples are all talented immortal cultivators, and they should not come from the same place, but are all over the world, but what is interesting is that Sun Wukong escorted Tang Seng to learn scriptures, traveled 108,000 miles, experienced countless places, but never met the senior brothers of Fangcun Mountain.
Speaking of which, everyone must be very curious, why didn't Sun Wukong meet the senior brothers of Fangcun Mountain on the way to learn the scriptures? We can see the clues from Rulai's words.
In the eighth chapter of the original work, after pressing Sun Wukong under the Five Elements Mountain, he summoned the gods of Lingshan to plan the great cause of learning from the scriptures, and said: "I am a person in the West Niu Hezhou, not greedy or killed, nourishing qi and latent spirits, although there is no supreme truth, everyone has a long life; I now have the Three Tibetan Sutras, which can persuade others to be kind. ”
If it comes to the supreme truth of Xiniu Hezhou, what is the supreme truth? That is, the heavenly sage-level god. Bodhi Patriarch Jingdao Master Jingdao Family 360 Sect all the spells, the mana is unfathomable, obviously has reached the realm of the Heavenly Dao Sage, and his dojo is in Xiniu Hezhou, but Rulai claims that Xiniu Hezhou is supreme true, does this mean that he does not know Bodhi Patriarch?
The answer is actually no. Rulai not only knows Patriarch Bodhi, but also has a great relationship with him.
As mentioned earlier, there are twelve characters under the Bodhi Patriarch, and the fifth character is Ruzi, which shows that his fifth-generation disciples are Ruzi, and we know that Rulai is also Ruzi, and then linked to Bodhi Patriarch Dao Buddha double cultivation, it is completely possible to cultivate a Buddha disciple, so Rulai is likely to be his disciple.
Since Rulai is a disciple of the Bodhi Patriarch, why does he claim that Xiniu Hezhou is supreme and true, as if he doesn't know Bodhi?
Because Patriarch Bodhi is low-key and easily reluctant to interact with the outside world, it is impossible to admit that there is such a true Patriarch as Bodhi in Xiniu Hezhou, otherwise it will inevitably attract the attention of the people of the Three Realms, so that Patriarch Bodhi's hermitage will be discovered and disturbed endlessly by the outside world.
It is not difficult to understand why Sun Wukong couldn't meet the Fang Cun Shan brothers on the way to learn the scriptures, because in order to avoid the Bodhi Patriarch being disturbed by the outside world, the Fang Cun Mountain brothers will not admit that they are the disciples of the Bodhi Patriarch at all, so Sun Wukong may have encountered it, but because the brothers did not identify themselves, and they did not know that the other party was from the same school as their own teacher, it created an illusion that they had never encountered it. What do you think?