佛祖統紀 7.5

7.5

六祖法華尊者智威。姓蔣氏。處州縉雲人。母朱氏。家世業儒。年十八。為本郡堂長（郡學之職）父母令歸納婦。路逢梵僧謂之曰。少年何意欲違昔日重誓耶。因示其五願曰。一願臨終正念。二願不墮三途。三願人中託生。四願童真出家。五願不為流俗之僧。蓋前身為徐陵。聽智者講經。深有詣入。對智者親立此願。師聞願已不復還家。即往國清投章安為師。受具之後咨受心要。定慧俱發即證法華三昧。唐上元元年（高宗）欲卜勝地說法度人。執錫而誓曰。錫止之處即吾住所。其錫自國清飛至蒼嶺普通山（台婺分界）可五百里。以隘狹不容廣眾。陵空再擲。至軒轅鍊丹山。師既戾止。翦棘刈茅班荊為座聚石為徒。晝講夜禪手寫藏典。於是名其地曰法華。既而學者子來。習禪者三百人。聽講者七百眾。常分為九處安居。師身長七尺。骨法古秀。每登座有紫雲覆頂。狀如寶蓋。鳥雀旁止有同家畜。眾苦乏水。浚一石井纔三尺深。日給千眾冬夏無竭。法華至仙居上阪（仙居台州屬色阪坂同坡也音反）約八十里。師每日往反。齋粥禪講未嘗少違。咸謂有神足通。永隆元年十一月二十八日趺坐禪堂而化。異香七日不歇（自上元初建寺。至永隆初入滅。纔七年耳）是日眾見坐逝於寺。而上阪之人見師赴檀越舍。至人起滅其不可測識若此。傳法雖眾。唯天宮威師為之正嗣。師在大宗朝。名德升聞。召補朝散大夫封四大師（耆老相傳云。唐有四大師。謂引駕大師。護國大師。餘二闕聞。今詳考隋唐僧傳。但有引駕之名。其員有四）吳越王。請諡玄達尊者。宋朝皇祐初元。仙居令伍祑。於傳道處重修殿庭奉安真像。是夜有虎繞殿三匝而去。元豐五年十三代孫忠法師。躬禮舍利增飾其塔。錄行實而記之曰。師與天宮同時行化。俱受封官繼祖之位。若橫論秖成八世。竪分則有九代也。昔如來涅槃。阿難結集。出二弟子。一名商那。一名末田地。居國雖異行化則同。故付法藏。橫列二十三。堅分二十四。今智者示滅。章安結集。出二弟子。亦同其時。阿難結集之際。闍王送供一夏。章安結集之日。煬帝送供十年。挹流尋源。智者如東土一佛。章安有似阿難。二威亦猶商那末田地。煬帝外護有同闍王。可不信哉。師平日坐禪舊阯。至今不生春草。

The Sixth Patriarch, the Venerable Fahua, Zhiwei, had the family name Jiang and was a native of Jinyun in Chuzhou. His mother was of the Zhu clan. For generations his family had been Confucian scholars. At the age of eighteen, he became the head of students (an office of the commandery school) of his native commandery. His parents bade him return home to take a wife. On the road he met an Indian monk who said to him, 'Young man, what mind have you to violate your solemn vows of the past?' Thereupon he showed him his five vows, which said: 'First, I vow to maintain right mindfulness at the end of life. Second, I vow not to fall into the three miserable destinies. Third, I vow to take birth among human beings. Fourth, I vow to leave household life as a youth. Fifth, I vow not to be a monk of worldly fashion.' For in his previous life he had been Xu Ling, who had listened to Zhiyi expounding the sūtras and attained deep understanding, personally making these vows before Zhiyi. Having heard his vows, the Master did not return home, but went directly to Guoqing [Monastery] to place himself under Zhang'an as his teacher. After receiving the full precepts, he inquired after and received the essentials of the mind; both concentration and wisdom burst forth, and he immediately realized the Lotus Samādhi. In the first year of the Shangyuan reign of the Tang (Gaozong), wishing to divine an auspicious site to expound the Dharma and save people, he held his monk's staff and vowed, 'Wherever my staff comes to rest shall be my dwelling place.' His staff flew from Guoqing to Mount Putong on Cangling (the boundary between Taizhou and Wuzhou), some five hundred li away. Because it was narrow and could not accommodate a great multitude, he cast it into the air again, and it reached Mount Xuanyuan Liandan. Having arrived there, the Master cut away thorns, mowed the reeds, spread brushwood for a seat, and gathered stones as disciples. By day he expounded the teachings and by night sat in meditation, copying the scriptures of the canon by hand. He then named the place Fahua ('Lotus'). Before long, learners came like children [gathering around a father]: three hundred practiced meditation and seven hundred listened to the lectures. They were regularly divided into nine places for the retreat. The Master was seven feet tall, with an ancient and refined skeletal frame. Whenever he ascended the seat, a purple cloud covered his crown, shaped like a jeweled canopy. Birds perched at his side just like domestic fowl. The community suffered from a lack of water; he dug a stone well only three feet deep, which supplied a thousand people daily and never dried up, winter or summer. From Fahua to Shangban in Xianju (Xianju was an administrative district of Taizhou; 'ban' [阪] is the same as 'ban' [坂], meaning a slope; pronounced fan) was about eighty li. The Master traveled back and forth every day, yet was never slightly late for meals, meditation, or lectures. Everyone said he possessed the supernatural power of swift travel. On the twenty-eighth day of the eleventh month in the first year of the Yonglong reign, he sat cross-legged in the meditation hall and passed away. The extraordinary fragrance did not cease for seven days. (From the initial construction of the monastery in the first year of Shangyuan until his entering into extinction in the first year of Yonglong, it was merely seven years.) On that day, the multitude saw him pass away sitting in the monastery, while the people of Shangban saw the Master going to a donor's house. The arising and extinction of a perfect person are unfathomable like this. Although many received the Dharma from him, only Master Tiangong Wei was his true successor. During the reign of Emperor Taizong, his renown and virtue reached the imperial hearing; he was summoned and appointed Grand Master of Closing Court, and enfeoffed as a 'Great Master of the Four' (Elders pass down the tradition that the Tang had four Great Masters, meaning the Imperial Chariot Escort Great Master, the State-Protecting Great Master, while the other two have not been heard of. Now, investigating the biographies of monks of the Sui and Tang in detail, there is only the title of Imperial Chariot Escort, and of these officials there were four). The King of Wuyue requested the posthumous title 'Venerable Xuanda'. In the first year of the Huangyou reign of the Song dynasty, Wu Zhi, magistrate of Xianju, rebuilt the hall and courtyard at the site where he had transmitted the Way and enshrined his true image. That night, a tiger circled the hall three times and departed. In the fifth year of the Yuanfeng reign, Dharma Master Zhong, his descendant in the thirteenth generation, bowed in person to his relics, embellished his stūpa, and recorded his actual conduct, writing: 'The Master and Tiangong carried out their transformations at the same time; both received official titles and succeeded to the position of patriarch. If counted horizontally, they form only eight generations, but if distinguished vertically, there are nine generations. In ancient times, when the Tathāgata entered nirvāṇa, Ānanda compiled the teachings and produced two disciples: one named Śāṇavāsa and one named Madhyāntika. Although they dwelt in different countries, their teaching and transformation were the same. Therefore, in the transmission of the Dharma treasury, they are horizontally arrayed as twenty-three, and vertically distinguished as twenty-four. Now, when Zhiyi manifested extinction, Zhang'an compiled the teachings and produced two disciples, also at the same time. When Ānanda compiled the teachings, King Ajātaśatru sent offerings for one summer retreat; when Zhang'an compiled the teachings, Emperor Yang sent offerings for ten years. Tracing the stream back to its source, Zhiyi is like a Buddha in the eastern land; Zhang'an is similar to Ānanda; the two Weis are also like Śāṇavāsa and Madhyāntika; and Emperor Yang's external protection is identical to King Ajātaśatru. How could one not believe this?' To this day, no spring grass grows on the old site where the Master used to sit in meditation.