成唯識論演祕 1.554

1.554

Following the Biography of Bodhisattva Vasubandhu, the matters of this master are recounted, as cited in full in the Liaoyi deng. Furthermore, tradition says: At the beginning of the kalpa, there was a non-Buddhist, named Kapila in the old Śata-śāstra and elsewhere. This person cultivated the path and became an immortal with the five supernormal knowledges. Having composed an abridged Sāṃkhya treatise, he already knew the world is impermanent and the body would not abide long. Fearing that others in later times would refute the treatise he had composed, he wished to preserve his body to abide for a long time to debate with others, and went to Maheśvara to request the method for prolonging life. Maheśvara said: "You may go to the forest and eat the myrobalan (āmalaka); then you can abide long." When this āmalaka fruit is not yet ripe, its colour is green; when it is already ripe, its colour is yellow-white; this is an elixir of immortality. When this medicine is first eaten, it is sour, bitter, and has little flavour; after eating it, if one drinks cold water, the sweet flavour in the mouth is just like eating honey, hence it is so named. Having obtained this medicine, the immortal still feared impermanence, and went again to the god to request prolonging his years. The god said: "To be severed into a single object achieves the longest life." The god then transformed the immortal into a square stone, about ten cubits in size, located in the āmalaka forest on the Vindhya mountains. When Bodhisattva Dignāga composed the Hetuvidyā treatises, he established the thesis, reason, and example to refute their Sāṃkhya doctrines, and none of that immortal's disciples could answer. They wrote Dignāga's refutations onto the stone, and the stone immediately wrote answers. When Dignāga learned of this, he went together with the immortal's disciples to the stone, wrote refutations on the stone, and faced it with them to record it; coming to see it the next morning, it had immediately written solutions. He wrote again like this, going daily to see it, and only after two or three days could it begin to solve them. When Dignāga wrote again, it took seven days to solve them; writing again like this, it could no longer explain. The stone sweated, roared loudly, shattered, and burst into the sky. Thereupon a deva held Dignāga up in the air in the palm of his hand and spoke verses in praise. When the assembly had witnessed this, the various treatises composed by Dignāga became widely prevalent in the world.