佛祖統紀 29.21

29.21

Dharma Master Chengguan was a man of Kuaiji, of the Xiahou clan. He left household life at Yingtian Monastery, where he recited the Lotus Sūtra, and was ordained at age fourteen. During the Qianyuan era, he studied the Vinaya under Master Li of Qixia, received the Southern Mountain practices from Tanyi, received the bodhisattva precepts from Changzhao, and transmitted the Guanhe Sanlun from Xuanbi; the flourish of Sanlun in the region south of the Yangtze began with this. In the beginning of the Dali era, at Waguan Monastery, he transmitted the Nirvāṇa, the Awakening of Faith, the Zhongnan Dharmadhātu Contemplation, and Fazang's Huanyuan ji. He then went to the Eastern Capital and received the Avataṃsaka from Daxin. In the tenth year, he followed Jīngxī to study the commentaries on the Zhiguan, the Lotus Sūtra, the Vimalakīrti, and others. He called upon Zhong of Niutou, Qin of Jingshan, and Wuming of Luoyang to resolve questions on the Chan methods of the Southern school, and called upon Huiyun to clarify the profound principle of the Northern school. In the Confucian and Mohist texts of this land, the Sanskrit books of Tianzhu, the disparate views of the various schools, the four Vedas, the five sciences, and the exoteric and esoteric rituals, there was nothing he did not master comprehensively and synthesize broadly. In the eleventh year, he made a pilgrimage to Mount Wutai and Mount Emei, witnessing auspicious omens at both. Returning to dwell at the Da Huayan Monastery in the capital, he dedicated himself to the Practice of the Vaipulya Repentance, continued to lecture on the great Avataṃsaka Sūtra, and composed twenty scrolls of a new commentary. On Emperor Dezong's birthday, he was summoned to lecture on the sūtra in the inner palace; refreshing the Emperor's mind with the wondrous Dharma, he was thereupon granted the title Dharma Master Qingliang, bestowed a purple patch-robe, and revered as the Instructing Ācārya. An imperial order was given to Li Shen, Minister of the Ministry of Rites, to prepare the proper rites to receive him, and together with the Tripiṭaka Master Prajñā of Jibin, he translated the Avataṃsaka Sūtra presented by the state of Uḍra. The Emperor personally participated in the translation forum; if absent for a day, he would dispatch a monk in accordance with the bhikṣu Dharma to declare his intention, saying: 'Due to matters of state, the Emperor grants his proxy with pure intent for the assembly's Dharma affairs.' In the fifth year of the Yuanhe era, Emperor Xianzong inquired about the essential tenets of the Avataṃsaka dharmadhātu and had a sudden realization. He ordered the officials to cast a gold seal and conferred the additional title Great Regulator National Preceptor Qingliang. On the sixth day of the third month of the third year of the Kaicheng era, he showed his passing. He lived to the age of one hundred and two, with eighty-three rains retreats. He was buried in a stone chamber at Zhongnan; his stupa was named Miaojue. The Master was nine feet four inches tall, with arms extending below his knees; his eyes emitted light at night and did not blink even by day. His talent allowed him to keep two pens writing at once, recording ten thousand words daily. Throughout his life he took only one meal a day and never slept without his robes. He spanned nine reigns and served as mentor to seven emperors. When Jīngxī and forty monks from the Jiang-Huai region made a pilgrimage to Mount Wutai, the Master led ten thousand followers out to the suburbs to welcome them from afar, admiring their respectful propriety toward their teacher. The Master was more than a century removed from Xianshou, yet he received his tenets from afar. The commentaries and subcommentaries he wrote exceeded four hundred scrolls; he lectured on the Avataṃsaka up to fifty times, held fifteen great assemblies for the unrestrained feast, and had thirty-eight disciples who propagated the Dharma. Chancellor Pei Xiu was ordered by imperial decree to compose his stele inscription.