佛祖統紀 5.19

5.19

The Twelfth Patriarch, the Venerable Kapimala, was a man of the kingdom of Pāṭaliputra. As a teacher of non-Buddhists, he had an assembly of three thousand followers. Using supernormal powers, he sought to harass Aśvaghoṣa. Aśvaghoṣa said: "What further can your supernormal powers do?" Kapimala said: "For me to transform the great ocean is an extremely small matter." Aśvaghoṣa said: "Can you transform the ocean of true nature?" He asked: "What is called the ocean of true nature?" Aśvaghoṣa said: "Mountains, rivers, and the great earth are established relying upon it; samādhi and the six supernormal knowledges become manifest from this." When Kapimala heard this, he was able to believe and enter [the teaching], attaining awakening together with his three thousand followers. Having received the entrustment from his master, he proclaimed the true Dharma. In Southern Tianzhu he brought great benefit, composing the *Nirātma-śāstra* (*Treatise on Non-Self*) in fully one hundred verses. Wherever this treatise reached, māras and non-Buddhists were crushed. At that time, in Western India, there was a crown prince named Yunjizai (Meghasvara?). Revering the master's virtue, he invited him into the palace to make offerings to him. Kapimala said: "The Buddha's vinaya forbids monks from being close to kings, ministers, and authority." The prince said: "North of the city there is a mountain cavern; could you go and dwell there?" Kapimala went there at once. On the path, he saw a great python, preached the Dharma to it, and conferred the precepts upon it; the python then vanished. When he arrived at the stone cavern, an old man in white garments came out to welcome and thank him, saying: "In the past, I was a monk who upheld the precepts and loved quietude. When beginners asked for instruction, in answering them I often gave rise to anger; therefore I received retribution as a python. I have dwelt here already for a thousand years. Just now, hearing you preach the Dharma, I have escaped suffering; therefore I come to bow and thank you." (From the Buddha's parinirvāṇa to this time was only six hundred years. This python must have been a monk in the latter days of Kāśyapa Buddha's Dharma, hence it is said to be a thousand years.) When Kapimala's conditions for teaching were completed, he displayed supernormal powers and entered extinction. The assembly collected his relics and erected a stūpa to make offerings to them (*Fu fazang jing*).