摩訶止觀 1.5

1.5

付法藏人，始迦葉，終師子，二十三人。末田地與商那同時取之，則二十四人。諸師皆金口所記，並是聖人，能多利益。昔王不立厩於寺，立厩於屠，況好世值聖，寧無益耶？又婆羅門貨髑髏，孔達者、半者、不者，達者起塔禮供得生天。聞法之要，功德若此，佛為此益，付法藏也。

Those who transmitted the Dharma treasury, beginning with Kāśyapa and ending with Siṃha, were twenty-three persons. If Madhyāntika and Śāṇavāsa are counted concurrently, there are twenty-four persons. These masters were all predicted by the Golden Mouth [of the Buddha] and were all noble ones capable of bringing manifold benefit. In former times, a king did not build stables by a monastery, but built stables by a slaughterhouse—how much more so, encountering noble ones in a good era, could there fail to be benefit? Furthermore, a brahmin was selling skulls: those with perforations all the way through, halfway through, and not at all; for the one perforated all the way through, a stūpa was erected, and making offerings and paying reverence to it brought rebirth in heaven. Such is the merit of hearing the essential points of the Dharma. It was for this benefit that the Buddha transmitted the Dharma treasury.