釋氏稽古略 3.68

3.68

Vinaya Master Daoxuan of Mount Zhongnan. In the dingmao year, the second year of Qianfeng, on the third day of the tenth month, the Vinaya Master entered nirvāṇa at Ximing Monastery in Chang'an. The Vinaya Master's taboo name was Daoxuan. He was born into the Qian clan of Jingzhao; his father was Shen, Minister of Personnel. His mother dreamed that a lunar orb penetrated her bosom and thereby became pregnant. She also dreamed of an Indian monk who said to her: "The child conceived is Vinaya Master You of the Liang." When he grew up, he left home and strictly maintained the Vinaya. He moved the devas to send him food and act as his guards. In his later years, because the ordination platform did not conform to the Vinaya, he personally carried earth and renewed it in accordance with the Vinaya. Once, while the Vinaya Master was walking the Way in the middle of the night, he stumbled at the steps and fell. A youth in armor supported and guarded him. The Vinaya Master asked, "Who are you?" He replied, "Your disciple is Zhang Qiong, son of the Heavenly King Virūpākṣa. Because of the Master's moral virtue in the precepts, I have come to attend and protect you." The Vinaya Master questioned him about matters during the World-Honoured One's lifetime and at his nirvāṇa; Qiong related them one by one. He also separately bestowed upon the Vinaya Master a Buddha's tooth and a recipe for compounding medicinal pills—what is now known in the markets as the Heavenly King Heart-Nourishing Pill. Practitioners at repentance assemblies use it daily. The heavenly spirits' descents were not infrequent, and their questions and answers were transmitted; the Vinaya Master compiled them and entitled it *Record of the Responses and Attendances of the Moved Devas*. The Vinaya Master wrote the *Catalogue of Internal Scriptures*, the *Record of the Resonances of the Three Jewels*, the *Critique of Buddhism and Daoism*, the *Genealogy of Śākyamuni*, the *Four-Part Karmavācanā*, the *Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks*, and the *Expanded Collection for the Propagation and Clarification [of Buddhism]*—in all, eight works in eighty-one fascicles, which all circulated in the world. When the Vinaya Master showed his passing, Gaozong issued an edict expressing his grief and mourning, ordering monasteries throughout the empire to paint his portrait and mold his statue to serve as a model for reverence and sacrifice. Muzong composed a panegyric: "In each age there are awakened ones, / serving as envoys of the Tathāgata. / Dragons and demons surrender; / mountain gods render service. / His fame soared over the Five Indias; / his words astounded ten thousand ages. / As the golden crow sank in the west, / the Buddha-sun rose in the east. / We bow our heads and take refuge / in the founding patriarch of the Vinaya school." In the eleventh year of Xiantong of Yizong, he was posthumously granted the title Vinaya Master Chengzhao (his biography).