高僧傳 4.12

4.12

Faya was a native of Hejian. Poised, upright, and possessed of great capacity, in his youth he excelled in non-Buddhist learning, and as he matured he became thoroughly versed in Buddhist doctrine; scholars and officials of the gentry all attached themselves to him to seek instruction. At that time, the disciples who relied on him were all proficient in worldly texts, but not yet adept in Buddhist principles. Thereupon Faya, together with Kang Falang and others, took the numerical lists of categories in the sūtras and matched them with non-Buddhist books to establish precedents for generating understanding, calling this "matching the meaning" (geyi). Later, Pifu, Xiangtan, and others also debated and employed matching the meaning to instruct their disciples.