續高僧傳 9.22

9.22

釋慧暅。姓周氏。其先家本汝南。漢末分崩避地江左。小震是宅多歷年世。今為義興陽羨人也。祖韶齊殿中將軍。父覆梁長水校尉。並偃仰衡門不求聞達。優遊卒歲易農而仕。暅穎悟冥來挺操童幼。鑽求六經略通大義蓋家教之常習非其好也。年十八乃喟然歎曰。服膺周孔。以仁義為先。歸心黃老。以虛無為貴。而往來生死出入塵勞。乃域中之累業非出世之要道也。既發希有之志。仍感非常之應。夢見一塔累級五層。畫釆莊嚴迢然峻峙。因而禮拜願昇此塔。少選之頃俄上相輪。當時身心快樂未曾有也。於是將遊京邑。途次朱方。遇竹林寺詡法師。雅相嗟賞。乃依止出家為十戒和上。尋出都住甘露鼓寺。進具已後從靜眾峯師受十誦律。又聽龍光綽師成實。自綽化往更採眾師。屬意毘曇并八揵度。將欲並遊祕奧盡掇菁華。還從龍光學士大僧都舒法師研精成論。及舒物故親受遺囑。值梁室版蕩京寺荒殘。乃裂裳杖錫來止南徐。寔報地恩兼修法事。陳武在田朱方歷試。夙承高譽雅相欽重。司空侯公次牧此州。虛心頂戴。永定三年侯公入輔。乃請出都。於白馬寺講涅槃經及成實論。學徒雲結不遠千里。揮汗鼓袂風雨生焉。法筵之盛莫或斯擬。天嘉二年學士寶持等二百七十人。請講於湘宮寺。太建四年。宣帝勅請徙講東安。後主昔在春坊。亟經義集曾屬。才辯雄遠特所溢心及嗣寶位深惟敬仰。至德元年。下詔為京邑大僧都。四年轉大僧正。及天下混一來止徐方。緣會敷弘無替時序。以開皇九年七月十日遷於中寺。春秋七十有五。其月二十八日。窆於鍾山之巖。惟暅行業清高靈祇嚮應。神通感召不可思也。昔在陳朝。每年夏中常請於樂遊苑。為陳氏七祖及楊都六廟諸神。發涅槃大品經。並延神坐俱在講筵。所以翠旌孔蓋羽服霓裳。交亂人物驚神眩目。而往來迎送必降雲雨。冥期無爽十有餘載。常於食後講前假寐偃息。及講時將至。輒見朱衣人。喚曰。法師好起也。陳領軍將軍任忠。少為將帥。雅好畋遊。然宿植勝因。善機將發。庖厨饔餼悉放奇光。覩而怪之。竊懷憂懼。夜夢異人來謂己曰。如請東安講。則所見必當無憂。既而覺悟。歡喜踊躍。罝罦矰繳一時焚燼。仍屈兩夏。於府講說。因此懺悔承持二經受不殺戒。故靈迹寔繁未陳萬一。凡講成實玄義六十三遍。論文十五遍。涅槃大品各二十餘遍。五十許年法事相接。自餘眾部略而不載。菩薩戒弟子司空吳明徹等。公侯將相貴遊朝士數千餘人。難以勝記。弟子智瑜等。以音儀永謝餘論將空非彼豐碑無陳聲實。乃勒銘于寺中。菩薩戒弟子著作郎瑯瑘王胄製文。

Śramaṇa Huixuan. His secular surname was Zhou. His ancestors were originally from Runan; at the end of the Han dynasty, amid its collapse, they fled to Jiangzuo. They resided in Xiaozhen for many generations, and thus became people of Yangxian in Yixing. His grandfather Shao was General of the Palace Interior under the Qi. His father Fu was Commandant of the Changshui Cavalry under the Liang. Both lived leisurely behind simple brushwood gates without seeking fame or prominence, passing their years in ease and retiring from agriculture into official service. Xuan's sagacity came from within, and he displayed upright conduct even as a young boy. He delved into the Six Classics and broadly understood their main ideas; this, however, was merely regular practice from family training, not what he truly loved. At the age of eighteen, he sighed deeply and said: 'Taking Zhou and Confucius to heart, one prioritizes benevolence and righteousness; submitting one's mind to Huang-Lao, one values voidness and non-being. Yet cycling through birth and death, passing into and out of worldly defilements, these are entangling karmas of the worldly realm, not the essential path of transcendence.' Having brought forth this rare aspiration, he experienced an extraordinary spiritual response. He dreamt of a five-tiered pagoda, adorned with painted colors, towering high and steep. Thereupon he prostrated himself, wishing to ascend this pagoda. In a brief moment, he suddenly stood atop the wheel spire, experiencing an unprecedented joy of body and mind at that moment. Thereupon he intended to travel to the capital; stopping on the way in Zhufang, he met Dharmabhāṇaka Xu of Zhulin Temple, who deeply admired and praised him. He then took refuge under him, left the household life, and took Xu as his preceptor for the ten precepts. Soon he departed for the capital and dwelt at Ganlu Gu Temple. After receiving full ordination, he received the Daśabhāṇavāra Vinaya from Master Feng of Jingzhong Temple. He also listened to Master Chuo of Longguang Temple expounding the Tattvasiddhi-śāstra. Following Chuo's transformation, he sought out many other masters, directing his attention to the Abhidharma and the eight skandhakas. Desiring to explore the profound mysteries together and gather all their essences, he returned to study with the Longguang scholar and Grand Saṅgha Leader (Da sengdu), Dharmabhāṇaka Shu, investigating the Tattvasiddhi with thorough precision. When Shu passed away, Xuan personally received his final testamentary entrustment. Meeting with the upheaval of the Liang royal house and the desolation of the capital's temples, he tore his robes, grasped his monk's staff, and came to stay in Nanxu, truly requiting the kindness of his home territory while cultivating Dharma activities. When Emperor Wu of Chen was still a commoner, repeatedly tested in Zhufang, he had long heard of Xuan's high reputation and held him in deep esteem. When Sikong Lord Hou governed this province in succession, he bowed before him with an open heart. In the third year of Yongding, when Lord Hou entered the court to assist the administration, he requested Xuan to go to the capital to lecture on the Nirvāṇa Sūtra and the Tattvasiddhi-śāstra at Baima Temple. Scholars gathered like clouds, coming from thousands of miles away; they wiped their sweat and waved their sleeves, stirring wind and rain, such that no Dharma assembly's grandeur could rival it. In the second year of Tianjia, the scholar Baochi and others, numbering two hundred and seventy people, requested him to lecture at Xiangong Temple. In the fourth year of Taijian, Emperor Xuan issued an edict requesting him to move his lectures to Dong'an. In earlier days when the Later Sovereign was still in the Eastern Palace (Chunfang), he often attended doctrinal assemblies and was present. His vast, powerful eloquence especially delighted the prince's mind; upon succeeding to the imperial throne, the emperor held him in deep reverence and respect. In the first year of Zhide, an imperial edict appointed him Grand Saṅgha Leader of the capital; in the fourth year, he was transferred to Grand Saṅgha Controller (Da sengzheng). When the realm was unified under the Sui, he came to dwell in the Xu region; following conditions, he promulgated and disseminated the teachings without missing the proper seasons. On the tenth day of the seventh month in the ninth year of Kaihuang, he passed away at Zhong Temple, aged seventy-five. On the twenty-eighth day of that month, he was entombed on the crags of Zhongshan. Xuan's religious practice was pure and elevated, and the spirits responded to him; his spiritual resonance was inconceivable. Formerly, during the Chen dynasty, in the middle of each summer he was regularly invited to the Leyou Garden to expound the Nirvāṇa Sūtra and the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā Sūtra on behalf of the seven ancestral sovereigns of the Chen family and the spirits of the six shrines of the capital of Yangdu. Spirits' seats were also set out together in the lecture hall. Thus, Kingfisher banners, peacock-feather parasols, feathered garments, and rainbow skirts mingled among people, astonishing the spirits and dazzling the eyes. In receiving and sending off those who came and went, clouds and rain inevitably fell, the unseen appointment never failing for over ten years. Often, taking a nap to rest after eating and before lecturing, when the time for lecturing approached, he would always see a man in red clothes calling out, 'Dharmabhāṇaka, it is time to arise!' Ren Zhong, General of the Army of the Chen, was a commander from his youth and was deeply fond of hunting. Yet having planted superior causes in past lives, the trigger for goodness was about to emerge. The meat in his kitchen and stores suddenly emitted a wondrous light; seeing this, he found it uncanny, privately feeling anxiety and fear. At night he dreamt of an extraordinary person who came to tell him: 'If you request the Dong'an master to lecture, what you have seen will surely cause no worry.' Awakening soon after, he leapt for joy, and immediately burned his hunting nets, bird traps, and arrow cords. He subsequently enticed Xuan for two summers to lecture in his mansion; because of this, he repented, upheld the two sūtras, and received the precept against killing. Thus his spiritual traces were truly numerous; this is not even one ten-thousandth of them. In total, he lectured on the profound meaning of the Tattvasiddhi sixty-three times, its text fifteen times, and the Nirvāṇa Sūtra and the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā each over twenty times. For some fifty years, his Dharma activities continued uninterrupted; other various texts are omitted and not recorded. Those who received the bodhisattva precepts, such as Sikong Wu Mingche, along with dukes, marquises, generals, ministers, nobles, and court officials, numbered more than several thousand, impossible to record fully. His disciple Zhiyu and others, considering that his voice and demeanor were gone forever and his lingering teachings would become hollow, felt that without a monumental stele there would be no way to display his renown and actuality; they therefore engraved an inscription in the temple. The bodhisattva precept disciple, Editorial Director (Zhuzuo lang) Wang Zhou of Langya, composed the text.