Within the traditional Zen lineage, Sosan (Jianzhi Sengcan), the Third Patriarch, is remembered as the teacher whose mantle passed to Daoxin. Classical lineage charts present Daoxin as the Fourth Patriarch, and in that sense he stands as Sosan’s principal and most renowned successor. The early records that shaped the orthodox transmission narrative focus almost exclusively on this patriarchal chain, rather than on a broader circle of students, so no other famous disciples are prominently preserved in the tradition.

At the same time, historical awareness within the Zen world has long recognized that these patriarchal successions function more as doctrinal and spiritual lineages than as strictly verifiable teacher–student relationships in the modern scholarly sense. The figure of Daoxin, therefore, can be seen less as a mere biographical detail and more as the symbolic continuation of Sosan’s insight within the evolving Chan community. From this perspective, to speak of Sosan’s “famous disciple” is essentially to speak of Daoxin alone, as the tradition does not clearly attest to other well-known direct heirs.

Thus, for those contemplating the flow of Zen’s early transmission, Sosan’s legacy is carried forward above all through the name and role of Daoxin as Fourth Patriarch. The silence of the records about additional disciples can itself be instructive, suggesting that what mattered most to the tradition was not a large roster of followers, but the integrity of a single, emblematic line of awakening.