高僧傳 1.18

1.18

Dharmakāla, translated here as 'Dharmatime', was originally a man of Madhyadeśa. His family had been very wealthy for generations and constantly cultivated pure merit. From his youth, Dharmakāla possessed talent and insight, and his bearing exceeded that of ordinary people; with a single glance at a text, he fully understood both words and meaning. He was skilled in studying the Four Vedas, and in the wind and clouds, stars and constellations, charts and prognostica, and cyclic revolutions, there was nothing he did not master; he said of himself that all the literary principles under heaven were completely within his mind and belly. When he reached the age of twenty-five, he entered a monastery and chanced upon the Abhidharmasāra (Faxing pidan); he idly took it up to read, but was utterly bewildered and could not comprehend it. Examining it again with care, he grew all the more confused. Thereupon he sighed and said: 'For many years I have accumulated learning, letting my ambition roam across the ancient classics, wielding my blade through the scriptures and histories; of their principles, I never needed a second thought, and of their texts, I never needed a second reading. Now, seeing this Buddhist book, it completely transcends my understanding; its principles and subtleties must reach into the profound, possessing a separate, refined essence.' Thereupon, bringing the scroll into a room, he asked a monk to explain it briefly. He then deeply awoke to cause and effect, wonderfully comprehended the three realms of time, and for the first time knew that the Buddhist teaching was vast and expansive, beyond what secular books could reach. He therefore abandoned worldly glory, left home (pravrajyā) in ascetic practice, and recited the Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna scriptures and the Vinaya of the various schools.