佛祖統紀 5.22

5.22

The fifteenth patriarch, the Venerable Rāhulata, was a man of the country of Kapila, extraordinarily intelligent. When the Venerable Kāṇadeva arrived in the country of Kapila, there was an elder named Śuddhapunyodaya, in whose garden a tree grew fungus like mushrooms. Only the elder and his son Rāhulata gathered and ate them; as soon as they were gathered, they grew back again, while the rest of their relatives could not even see them. The Venerable One, knowing the past cause, went to his house and said to him: 'In the past your family made offerings to a monk; because the eye of his Way was not yet clear, he vainly partook of the offerings of the faithful, and was retributed as a tree mushroom. Only you and your son made offerings with pure sincerity, so you are able to enjoy them.' He also asked how old the elder was. He said: 'Seventy-nine.' The Venerable One spoke a verse: 'Entering the Way without comprehending the principle, / One covers one's body to repay the offerings of the faithful. / When you reach the age of eighty-one, / This tree will no longer produce mushrooms.' The elder sighed in admiration and straightway had his son leave household life. The Venerable One said: 'Formerly the Tathāgata prophesied that this boy would become a great master of the teaching in the second five-hundred-year period.' He then shaved his hair and respectfully transmitted the entrustment to him, greatly propagating the true Dharma. There was a brāhmaṇa who composed a book of ghost names in one hundred thousand verses, which was exceedingly difficult to understand. Nāgārjuna understood it upon hearing it once; Deva understood it upon hearing it twice; Rāhula also came to understand it upon hearing Deva's explanation. The brāhmaṇa was greatly astonished, saying: 'The śramaṇas seem as if they had practiced it of old!' and straightway had faith and submitted. His teaching affinities completed, Rāhula entered nirvāṇa. The assembly gathered his relics and erected a stupa to make offerings. (From the *Fu fazang jing*.)