續高僧傳 13.32

13.32

Śramaṇa Shenzhao, whose secular surname was Chunyu, was a native of Zhongmu in Bianzhou. At the age of nine, amid the turmoil of the Sui dynasty, his relatives died off until only he and his mother remained, drifting like duckweed with nothing to rely on. Before long his mother passed away, leaving him with nowhere to turn. In the morning he sought tree fruits, and at night he slept beside the corpse; passers-by who saw this never failed to weep. At twelve, he turned to Vinayadhara Mingzhi of Weishi and left home. At that time, the Vinayapiṭaka was being broadly expounded and disciples gathered like clouds. The realm was just being pacified and food was insufficient; Zhao went around villages carrying grain on his back to supply everyone, laboring without weariness through six years. In the intervals of serving the assembly, he lectured at night on the Lotus and Śrīmālādevī sūtras, though for a long time no one knew of it. Whenever he listened to the Vinaya, he produced extraordinary insights, astonishing the senior scholars with his distant comprehension. He also went to Yexia to listen to Dharmabhāṇaka Xiu on the Mahāyānasaṃgraha; he mastered it completely in a single hearing without missing a thing. When the lecture ended and he took his leave to return, Xiu saw him out of the temple. The school of disciples found this strange, but Xiu looked back and said: "This is 'Single-Hearing Zhao of Henan,' a leader among the younger generation. You should take note of him." He further went to Dharmabhāṇaka Kong in Xuzhou to hear the Saṃyuktābhidharmahṛdaya. After merely eight fascicles, he returned because the master fell ill. Later he lectured on it; from beginning to end, his mastery was overarching. People of the time had a saying: "Single-Hearing Zhao of Henan—his heroic fame is not summoned in vain." Thereafter, whenever occasion arose, he lectured on the Nirvāṇa, Avataṃsaka, Harivarman's Tattvasiddhi, and Saṃyuktābhidharmahṛdaya without ever declining. He also had several hundred tableaux of images made and several thousand fascicles of sūtras copied; he distributed them as conditions arose, never hoarding them. When the newly translated Vajracchedikā-prajñāpāramitā first arrived, he opened and read it to search out its meaning; the phraseology seemed to be missing a line, so he conjectured and annotated it according to context. Later, an [independent] manuscript proved to tally with his emendation. Everyone at the time was amazed by his intellectual power. During the Zhenguan era, he fell ill for a protracted period, yet his monastic conduct was flawless. He died at his home temple of Anye at the age of fifty-nine. Earlier, in ordinary times, he had reared a dog that constantly accompanied him wherever he stayed. When the final illness approached, the dog wailed long and mournfully, and through the entire night headed to Zhao's original temple of ordination, making a round trip of more than two hundred li. Circling the temple, it barked and howled to announce it, though that assembly was entirely unaware. Only after news of the demise arrived did they realise the dog's omen. At dawn the dog returned to Anye. After the pit was dug and filled, it lay down, wept tears, refused food, and died.