宋高僧傳 16.19

16.19

釋常達，字文舉，俗姓顧，海隅人也。發跡何陽、大福山，遊學江淮諸勝寺。達允迪中和，克完戒法，專講南山律鈔。後求《涅槃》圓音，《法華》止觀，復通《陰符》、《老》、《莊》、百家之書，其餘分時之學，盡二王之筆迹。後隨方參禪，詣于宗極。俄屬武宗滅法，歎曰：「我生不辰，不自我後！」由是寢默山棲，委裘遁世而無悶焉。宣宗重建法幢，荐興精舍。合境民人皆達之化導，故太守韋曙特加崇重。身不衣繒纊，室唯蒙薜蘿，四眾知歸，諸方慕化，其潔白鶴鷺如也。咸通十二年，合郭僧民請紹四眾教誨。或遊遨坰牧，或嘯傲海壖，不出林麓，動經數載。雖貴士單車詣門，莫得而見。於七五言詩，追用元和之體著《青山履道歌》，播人脣吻。忽於自恣明辰，鳩眾於長廊，合掌遂申長別，辭甚剛正。因臥疾不起，絕食七日而逝，實咸通十五年九月十六日也，春秋七十四，僧臘五十一。門人會清、傳郎奉靈柩殯于寺之東南三百步。後年即墳起塔，頴川陳言撰塔銘，邑大夫汝南周思輯為檀信，乾符四年立碑焉。

Shi Changda, courtesy name Wenju, secular surname Gu, was a native of the coastal region. He began his monastic career at Heyang and Mount Dafu, and traveled widely to study at the famous temples of the Jiang-Huai region. Changda truly walked the path of centrality and harmony and fully perfected the precepts, lecturing exclusively on the Nanshan lüchao. Later he sought the complete teaching of the Nirvāṇa Sūtra and the calm-and-insight of the Lotus Sūtra, and furthermore mastered the Yinfujing, Laozi, Zhuangzi, and the writings of the hundred schools; in the spare hours of his studies, he thoroughly mastered the calligraphic style of the two Wangs. Afterward he engaged in dhyāna inquiry in various places, reaching the ultimate principle. Soon came Emperor Wuzong's suppression of the Dharma; he sighed: 'I was born at an unlucky hour, not after it had passed!' Thereupon he maintained silence and dwelt in the mountains, discarding worldly robes to retreat from the world without distress. When Emperor Xuanzong re-erected the Dharma banner and repeatedly restored monasteries, the people throughout the entire region were all transformed and guided by Da; therefore, the prefect Wei Shu honored him with special reverence. His body wore neither silk nor floss; his chamber was covered only by creepers and vines. The fourfold assembly knew where to turn for refuge, and people from all quarters admired his transforming influence; his purity was like that of cranes and egrets. In the twelfth year of the Xiantong era, the clergy and laity of the entire city requested him to assume the guidance of the fourfold assembly. Sometimes he roamed the outer suburbs and pastures, sometimes he chanted freely along the seashore; without leaving the wooded foothills, several years would pass at a time. Even when nobles came in a solitary carriage to his gate, none could obtain an audience. In five- and seven-character poetry, he adopted the Yuanhe style to compose the 'Song of Treading the Path on the Green Mountain', which was widely recited on people's lips. Suddenly, on the morning of the Pravāraṇā ceremony, he gathered the community in the long corridor, joined his palms, and bade a lasting farewell in very upright and resolute words. He then took to his bed with an illness, stopped eating for seven days, and passed away; this was on the sixteenth day of the ninth month of the fifteenth year of the Xiantong era, at the age of seventy-four, with a saṅgha age of fifty-one. His disciples Huiqing and Chuanlang escorted the coffin and buried him three hundred paces southeast of the temple. In a later year, a stupa was raised over the tomb; Chen Yan of Yingchuan composed the stupa inscription, and the district magistrate Zhou Siji of Runan served as the patron. A stele was erected in the fourth year of the Qianfu era.