續高僧傳 13.35

13.35

Śramaṇa Fahu, surnamed Zhao, was originally a man from Zhaojun. His grandfather Kang served as the Grand Protector of Jiyin, and his descendants subsequently settled there. At the beginning of the Sui dynasty, there was a Zhao Heng who, along with Cui Wang of Qinghe, was selected as an Outstanding Talent (xiucai); at the time, they were called the 'Four Intelligences.' Heng was Fahu's father. The family was pure, frugal, and conducted themselves according to propriety. When Fahu was very young, during play he would assemble people in a circle to mount a lecturer's high seat, or pick flowers to arrange as offerings. His father recognized him as a vessel of the Dharma. At twelve, he suffered the loss of his father, and soon after, he met with the tragedy of his mother's death. He wept so bitterly that he lost consciousness several times. After completing his mourning period, he went to the Wei region in Hebei intending to study the Confucian arts. Suddenly encountering an auspicious condition that guided him, he was taught that the three realms are like a prison and the four great elements like venomous serpents, and that if one does not awaken early, transmigration will never end. He thereupon submitted to these words and shaved his head, being fifteen years old at the time. After staying to recite the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa for seven days, he had mastered it. From then on, he broadly sought out sūtras and treatises, making inquiries near and far. He then went to Zhinian's place to study the Abhidharma, and to Fayan's to study the Satyasiddhi-śāstra. Over many successive years, he followed the footsteps of previous masters. He also listened to lectures on the Vinaya, becoming slightly versed in rules and transgressions. Furthermore, he went to Treatise Master Song in Pengcheng, who was renowned across the realm as an authority on the Mahāyānasaṃgraha and admired nationwide. Fahu dedicated his mind to asking questions, shrinking from no difficulty. Song gave him guidance on subtle and profound points, completely exhausting the treatise's abstruse tenets. In the third year of the Daye era, an ordination of monks took place and transformed distant regions; Fahu responded to this edict, and his name was registered at Anlu. Soon after, an imperial edict summoned talented scholars from afar to reside in the Palace Chapel, at which time he was thirty-two years of age. Once settled at Huiri Monastery, where eminent scholars gathered in crowds, he constantly lectured on the Madhyamaka, Nirvāṇa Sūtra, and Mahāyānasaṃgraha. When the illegitimate Zheng regime was pacified and Emperor Taizong first entered [the capital], five renowned and virtuous monks were specially invited, and Fahu was among them. From this time on, he compared and evaluated the versions of the Mahāyānasaṃgraha, deciding what to reject and retain. Many considered the new version to be overly excised and condensed, not sufficient to rely upon, but Fahu alone grasped it intuitively in his mind. When the new Tang translations of the treatises appeared, they completely agreed with his interpretations; people considered that there was indeed one who possessed tacit understanding. In the twelfth year of the Zhenguan era, an imperial edict summoned him to enter Tiangong Monastery, the former residence where the Emperor had dwelled in obscurity before ascending the throne, where he was appointed to oversee the monastery's affairs. He encouraged others so that the assembly lived in gentle harmony. On the twenty-first day of the seventh month in the seventeenth year, he felt unwell at dusk, and consequently passed away in his room at the age of sixty-eight. Fahu was well-versed in secular texts and fond of Daoist arts. He restrained himself with meager meals, gave away his clothes to aid the freezing, kept his robes simply tied throughout the year, and never adorned his outward appearance. Yet aristocrats and nobles respected him, and versatile talents all gathered about him. Once, having taken a mineral powder, he suffered several days of dizziness and confusion. When his disciples deceived him, he would blame himself, thinking, 'Yet what reason is there to entrap the master in unrighteous ways?' He then refused to speak with them; such was his firmness and determination. Nevertheless, he delighted in giving without tire. In his room there was not a grain or spoon of stored provisions, but only a bed and a stool. He composed more than twenty treatises, including the Pointer to the Meaning of the Mahāyānasaṃgraha. When he first passed away, the śramaṇa Zhida of Mount Song, who was over ninety years old, aloof and pure, and had not left his mountain for more than thirty years, heard the lamentations, leaned on his staff, arrived, and expressed deep sorrow, saying: 'Men of sūtras and treatises, peers of disciplined asceticism, have existed in every generation. But as for one who is purely straightforward, natural, and endowed with broad and elegant capacity of mind—after this man's death, such traces have ceased.' Du Zhenglun, Secretariat Drafter, came to pay condolences and inscribed a memorial, which roughly said: 'In the past, I received your gracious instructions, which deeply guided me by the ear. Now, coming to pay my respects, grief wells up beside your bed and stool. Falling tears may be wiped away, but deep sorrow is endless. I had hoped you would reach a ripe old age, so I might long accompany your lofty footsteps.'