宋高僧傳 16.42

16.42

釋澄楚，姓宗氏，不知何許人也。爰祖暨考，偕賁丘園，高蹈不仕。母趙氏妊楚也，忽畏羶臊之臭。及乎誕生之夕，光爛充室，隣落咸驚。洎當七歲，親黨携之入寺，見佛像，輒嗟歎而作禮。歸家問父曰：「唯佛獨爾？餘者如何？」父曰：「蠢動皆佛，何況人矣？」楚曰：「兒願學佛，聊報二親劬勞。」其父默而許旃。至十歲，於相國寺禮智明為師。未幾，有童子聚戲而招誘之，楚曰：「汝何愚騃！好嬉戲耶？且雪山善財亦童子，還如是否？」旁有聞者奇之曰：「子異日成法門偉器必矣。」受具已來，習新章律部，獨能趣入毘奈耶窟穴。然其擊難酬答，露牙伸爪，時號律虎焉。王公大人請益者，日且眾矣。晉高祖聞而欽仰，詔入內道場，賜紫袈裟，尋署大師，號真法焉。自此皇宮妃主有慕法者求出家，命楚落髮度戒。表裏氷霜，更無他物，命為《新章律》宗主焉。以顯德六年十月十一日無疾而終，首北面西，示佛涅槃相也。俗齡七十一，僧夏五十。始末臨壇度僧尼八千餘人。門人慧照等依西域法焚之，得碎身，分構甎塔緘藏之。左街首座悟皎作《舍利塔記》焉。

Śramaṇa Chengchu, surnamed Zong, was a native of an unknown place. Both his grandfather and father lived secluded lives in the country, maintaining high principles without taking office. When his mother, Lady Zhao, was pregnant with Chu, she suddenly developed an aversion to rank and foul odors. On the night of his birth, a brilliant light filled the room, alarming all the neighbors. When he was seven years old, his relatives took him into a temple; upon seeing the Buddha statues, he sighed in admiration and made prostrations. Returning home, he asked his father, 'Is only the Buddha like this? How about others?' His father said, 'All wriggling creatures are buddhas; how much more so are human beings?' Chu said, 'Your son wishes to study the Buddha, so as to repay somewhat the toil and care of my two parents.' His father silently consented. At the age of ten, he took Zhiming as his master at Xiangguo Temple. Before long, some children gathered to play and tried to lure him; Chu said, 'How foolish you are! Do you so love frivolous play? The child of the Snow Mountains and Sudhana were also children; were they like this?' A bystander who heard him marveled, saying, 'This boy will surely become a great vessel of the Dharma gate in days to come.' After receiving the full precepts, he studied the New Chapter Vinaya texts, uniquely able to penetrate the caves of the vinaya. When fielding difficult questions and replying, he displayed his teeth and extended his claws, so he was called the Vinaya Tiger at the time. Princes, dukes, and high officials who sought his instruction grew more numerous day by day. Emperor Gaozu of the Jin heard of him and admired him; he summoned him into the palace chapel, bestowed upon him a purple kāṣāya, and soon conferred the grand master title Zhenfa upon him. From then on, when imperial consorts or princesses who admired the Dharma sought to leave household life, [the emperor] ordered Chu to shave their hair and administer the precepts. Internally and externally like ice and frost, without anything else, he was appointed lineage master of the New Chapter Vinaya. On the eleventh day of the tenth month in the sixth year of Xiande, he died without illness, his head to the north and facing west, displaying the posture of the Buddha's nirvāṇa. His worldly age was seventy-one, and his monastic summers were fifty. Throughout his life, he presided over the ordination altar and ordained more than eight thousand monks and nuns. His disciples Huizhao and others cremated him according to the Western method, obtained fractured relics, and constructed a brick pagoda in which to store and enclose them. Wujiao, the Rector of the Left Street, composed the Śarīra Pagoda Inscription.