續高僧傳 20.19

20.19

釋曇榮。俗姓張氏。定州九門人。源南鄧而分派。因封而居高陽焉。年十九時為書生。刻意玄理。寄心無地。因靈裕法師講華嚴經。試往聽之。便悟宏範略其詮致。乃投裕焉裕神厲氣清。觀榮勤攝遂即度之。及受具後專業律宗經餘六載。崇履禁科滌暢開結。乃更循講肆備聞異部。偏行大業故以地持為學先。屬周廢二教。韜形俗壤。雖外同其塵。而內服道味。及隋再弘佛教。不務公名。隨緣通化曾無執著。年登四十務道西遊。行至上黨潞城黎城諸山。依巖結宇即永潛遁既懿德是充緇素歸仰。便開拓柴障廣樹禪坊。四遠聞風一期翕至。榮形解雄邃稱病設方。諸有飡飲咸歆至澤。禮供日隆投告填委。以隋末凌亂人百從軍。預踐兵饑希全戒德。榮欲澄汰先染要假明猷。事在護持躬當法主。每年春夏立方等般舟。秋冬各興坐禪念誦。僧尼別院故處有四焉。致使五眾煙隨百供鱗集。日增慶泰歡躍成諠。自晉魏韓趙周鄭等邦。釋種更新其戒者。榮寔其功矣。嘗往韓州鄉縣延聖寺。立懺悔法。刺史風同仁。素奉釋門家傳供養。送舍利三粒遺行道眾。榮年垂八十。親率道俗三千人。步出野迎路。由二十餘里。儐從之盛譽滿當時。既達寺中。乃告眾曰。舍利之德挺變無方。若累業有銷請祈可遂。乃人人前別置水鉢。加以香爐通夜苦求。至明鉢內總獲舍利四百餘粒。聲名達于鄉邑。縣令懼其聚眾有墜條章。怖停其事。當夕怪獸鳴其廳宇。官民竟夜不安。明旦陳悔方從榮法。斯德被聖凡。皆此之例。武德九年夏。於潞城交漳村立法行道。所住堂舍忽自崩壞。龕像舍利宛然挺出。布在庭中一無所損。又貞觀七年。清信士常凝保等。請榮於州治法住寺。行方等悔法。至七月十四日。有本寺沙門僧定者。戒行精固。於道場內見大光明。五色間起從上而下。中有七佛相好非常。語僧定云。我是毘婆尸如來無所著至真等正覺。以汝罪銷故來為證。然非本師不與授記。如是六佛皆同此詞。最後一佛云。我是汝本師釋迦牟尼也。為汝罪銷故來授記。曇榮是汝滅罪良緣。於賢劫中名普寧佛。汝身器清淨。後當作佛。名為普明。若斯之應現感靈祥。信難圖矣。後臥疾於床。眼中流淚。弟子圓宗。曰和上生來念慧必無。不意何事悲泣。答曰。吾死將逼。恨更不得為諸七眾洗濯罪累耳。宗曰。何必至此。答曰。吾縱不死。亦是無用。自佛法再興已來。未省一度。不聽說戒。今既病困說欲斯必死矣。以貞觀十三年十二月終於法住寺。春秋八十有五。旋殯于野外。後門徒出其遺骨葬于寺南。建塔表之。自榮履歷重難而崇尚釋風。形器瓌偉過於八尺。詞吐溫贍風格遒遠。年登不惑斷粒練形。常餌守中用省煩累。而奉教結淨希見斯人。日到僧厨問其監膳。必有事染親看翻穢。並使食具清淨方始還房。自覿名德罕聞斯類。又於寺內諸房多結淨地。用擬四藥溫煮之所故預沾門序散在諸方。咸承風素免諸宿觸。又每歲懺法必具兩儀。二篇已下依律清之。先使持衣說淨終形立誓然後羯磨隨治成人。初聚正罪雅依大乘。仍令心用理事無著有空身口威儀歸承律撿。故自從訓勗奉法無虧。皆終諸命報。余因訪道藝行達潞城。奉謁清儀具知明略。故不敢墜其芳緒云。

Shi Tanrong, whose secular surname was Zhang, was a native of Jiumen in Dingzhou. His lineage originated in Southern Deng and branched out, settling in Gaoyang because of a fiefdom. At the age of nineteen, he was a student who applied himself earnestly to abstruse principles, yet could find nowhere to place his mind. When Dharma Master Lingyu was lecturing on the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, he tentatively went to listen, whereupon he awakened to its grand paradigms and grasped its essential meaning. He then threw himself upon Yu's guidance. Yu was stern in spirit and pure in demeanor; observing Rong's diligence and self-restraint, he immediately ordained him. After receiving full ordination, he specialized in the Vinaya school for more than six years, reverently putting into practice the disciplinary rules and clarifying their permissions and prohibitions. He then further frequented lecture halls and thoroughly heard the various sections. Because he especially practiced the Great Vehicle, he took the Bodhisattvabhūmi (Dichi) as the foundation of his studies. When the Zhou dynasty proscribed the two teachings, he concealed his appearance in the secular realm; though externally he mingled with its dust, internally he partook of the flavor of the Way. When the Sui dynasty once again promoted Buddhism, he did not seek official fame, but transformed others according to conditions without ever clinging. At the age of forty, dedicated to the Way, he traveled westward. Reaching the various mountains of Lucheng and Licheng in Shangdang, he built a hut leaning against the cliffs and went into eternal seclusion. Since his eminent virtue was abundant, both monastic and lay turned to him in reverence. He then expanded his brushwood barrier and extensively erected meditation halls. From all four directions, hearing of his reputation, people flocked together at once. Rong's appearance and understanding were profound; alleging illness, he devised methods of instruction, and all who partook [of his teaching] were delighted by the supreme benevolence. Ritual offerings grew daily, and people came to entrust themselves in droves. During the chaos at the end of the Sui, many among the populace were conscripted; stepping ahead into war and starvation, they hoped to keep their monastic vows intact. Rong wished to cleanse away former defilements, which required clear guidelines. Since this matter lay in safeguarding and upholding, he personally acted as the Dharma master. Every spring and summer he established vaipulya and pratyutpanna [retreats], and each autumn and winter he promoted seated meditation and recitation. Monks and nuns had separate compounds, so there were four locations in all. As a result, the five assemblies gathered like smoke, and hundreds of offerings arrived in dense shoals. Auspicious joy increased day by day, bursting into exuberant clamor. Throughout the states of Jin, Wei, Han, Zhao, Zhou, Zheng, and others, that the sons of the Śākya renewed their precepts was truly due to Rong's merit. He once went to Yansheng Temple in Xiang County of Hanzhou to establish a repentance ritual. The regional inspector, Feng Tongren, had long revered the Buddhist fold, and his family had passed down offerings [of relics]; he sent three relics to present to the circumambulating assembly. Rong, approaching eighty years of age, personally led three thousand clerics and laypeople to walk out into the countryside to welcome them, a route stretching over twenty li. The grandeur of the retinue was renowned in that era. Upon arriving at the temple, he addressed the assembly, saying: 'The power of relics is extraordinarily transformative and boundless. If accumulated karma can be dissolved, our prayers may be fulfilled.' He then had a water bowl placed separately before each person, accompanied by an incense burner, and they ardently sought [relics] through the night. By morning, a total of more than four hundred relics had been obtained in the bowls. His renown reached the local district. The county magistrate, fearing that this gathering of crowds violated regulations, was terrified and halted the matter. That night, a strange beast howled at his administrative halls, leaving officials and commoners unsettled all night. The next morning, he made confession, and only then complied with Rong's practice. Such was the way his virtue influenced both the holy and the mundane in all instances like this. In the summer of the ninth year of the Wude era (626 CE), when he established the Dharma and practiced circumambulation in Jiaozhang Village of Lucheng, the hall where he stayed suddenly collapsed on its own. The niche, the image, and the relics miraculously emerged intact, scattered across the courtyard without any damage whatsoever. Furthermore, in the seventh year of the Zhenguan era (633 CE), the pure faithful Chang Ningbao and others invited Rong to the Fazhu Temple in the prefectural capital to conduct the vaipulya repentance ritual. On the fourteenth day of the seventh month, a monk of this temple named Sengding, whose precept practice was pure and steadfast, saw a great light in the sanctuary, alternating in five colors, descending from above. Within it were seven Buddhas, their marks and signs extraordinary. They spoke to Sengding, saying: 'I am Vipaśyin Tathāgata, Arhat, Samyaksambuddha. Because your sins have been dissolved, I have come to bear witness; yet since I am not your root teacher, I do not confer prophecy upon you.' The [first] six Buddhas all spoke these same words. The final Buddha said: 'I am your root teacher, Śākyamuni. Because your sins have been dissolved, I come to confer prophecy upon you. Tanrong is your good condition for extinguishing sins; in the Bhadrakalpa his name will be the Buddha Funing. Your physical vessel is pure; in the future you will become a Buddha named Puming.' That such spiritual wonders and auspicious responses were manifested is truly difficult to fathom! Later, when lying sick in bed, tears flowed from his eyes. His disciple Yuanzong said: 'From the time Upādhyāya was born, mindfulness and wisdom have never been lacking; what could cause this weeping?' He replied: 'My death is pressing near. I regret only that I can no longer wash away the karmic sins for the seven assemblies.' Zong said: 'Why must it come to this?' He replied: 'Even if I do not die, I am already useless. Since the revival of the Buddha's Dharma, I do not recall a single occasion when I did not listen to the recitation of the precepts. Now, bedridden with severe illness, merely expressing my intention [to attend] means I must certainly die.' In the twelfth month of the thirteenth year of the Zhenguan era (640 CE), he died at Fazhu Temple at the age of eighty-five. He was soon laid to rest in the open country. Later, his disciples retrieved his remaining bones, buried them south of the temple, and erected a pagoda to mark the site. Rong endured manifold hardships yet exalted the Buddhist tradition. His physique was magnificent, exceeding eight feet in height; his speech was warm and plentiful, his style forceful and far-reaching. Upon reaching the age of forty, he ceased eating grain to cultivate his body, always consuming minerals to maintain inner balance, thereby reducing troubles. Yet in following the teachings to designate pure spaces, rarely was someone like him ever seen. Daily he went to the monastic kitchen to inspect the overseer of food; if there was any contamination, he personally observed the overturning of the defiled food, and only after making the utensils clean would he return to his room. In witnessing eminent virtues, one has seldom heard of such a practice. Moreover, throughout the various rooms of the monastery, he frequently designated pure spaces to serve as places for warming and boiling the four medicines; thus those who had entered his lineage and dispersed to the various directions all inherited this pure standard and were freed from lingering contamination. Furthermore, his annual repentance ritual always included both categories: offenses of the two chapters and below were purified in accordance with the Vinaya, first making them keep their robes, recite their purity, and take vows for the rest of their lives, and only then performing the karma-procedure to resolve them according to discipline and restore the person; the primary offenses of the initial group were appropriately treated in accordance with the Great Vehicle, still causing the mental function regarding principle and phenomena to be unattached to existence or emptiness, while the bodily and verbal deportment conformed to the scrutiny of the Vinaya. Therefore, those who followed his instructions and upheld the Dharma without defect maintained it to the very end of their lives. When I traveled to Lucheng in search of those proficient in the Way, I had the honor of paying respects to his pure presence and thoroughly learned of his brilliant plans; therefore, I dare not let his fragrant legacy fall into oblivion.