釋氏稽古略 3.65

3.65

The Great Being Sengqie of Sizhou: Initially traveling from the kingdom of Suyāb to Xiliang, in this year he manifested his transformative work in Luoyang. Someone asked him: 'What is your surname, Master?' The Great Being said: 'My surname is He (what).' They asked: 'A man of what kingdom?' The Great Being said: 'A man of He (what) kingdom.' In the first year of the Wansui Tongtian reign of Wu Zetian, an edict decreed that foreign monks who wished to reside here should be assigned to places accordingly. At that time, the Great Being did not wish to appear different from the ordinary, so he registered his name at Longxing Monastery in Chuzhou (now Huai'an Route). He was serene and indifferent; sometimes he sat quietly in a deep chamber, and sometimes he shook his ring-staff along long roads. In the second year of the Jinglong reign of Emperor Zhongzong, an imperial decree summoned the Great Being from the Huai monastery to enter the palace. The emperor called himself his disciple; the three top ministers inquired about the Dharma, and all the officials gave their allegiance. He was lodged at Jianfu Monastery. After he had been in the capital for several months, the weather suddenly became extremely dry. The emperor asked the Great Being to pray for rain in the inner palace, and sweet rain moistened everything immediately. For the Great Being's sake, the emperor ordained the three men Huiyan, Huian, and Mokṣa as his attendants. The emperor wrote a plaque for the monastery where the Great Being resided, naming it Puguangwang, and sent him back to the Huai region first. In the third month of the first year of the Jingyun reign of Emperor Ruizong, the Great Being manifested cessation at the age of eighty-three. An imperial decree ordered his whole body to be returned to Puguangwang Monastery in Sizhou, where his form was modeled and a stupa was built. The emperor asked the holy being Wanhui: 'What kind of man was Sengqie?' Hui said: 'He is an incarnation of the Great Being Avalokiteśvara.' For his first thirty years, the Great Being was in his native kingdom; for fifty-three years, he carried out his transformation in this land. He manifested responses and conditions for saving beings in altogether twenty-seven places. His divine traces and spiritual miracles were revered by all people, and halls, stupas, and temples everywhere made offerings to him (from his fundamental biography and stele inscriptions).