宋高僧傳 25.35

25.35

釋神智，婺州義烏人也，俗姓力。力氏之先，黃帝臣牧之後。漢有魯郡相力歸，因官居兗，遂為魯人也。祖考皆田畯，而以朴素相㳂。智少有貞操，懇樂捨家，就雲門寺惟孝為師。年十二，一食斷中；持〈大悲心呪〉，應法登戒，峻勵恪勤。俄屬會昌滅法，智形服雖殊，誓重為僧，磨不磷而涅不淄，于時見矣。大中初年，復道。巡遊暨陽，考于禪室，且曰：「營廷之魚，潛于藪澤，宜哉！此處吾之藪澤也。」恒呪水盃以救百疾，飲之多差。百姓相率，日給無算，號大悲和尚焉。大中中，入京兆，時昇平相國裴公休預夢智來，迨乎相見，欣然。相國女郎鬼神所被，智持呪，七日平復。遂奏請院額曰大中聖壽，仍賜左神策軍鐘一口、天后繡㡧、藏經五千卷。裴君為書殿額。智以光啟丙午歲十二月，終于東白山，春秋六十八，法臘四十八。遷座歸暨陽南山入塔焉。

Śramaṇa Shenzhi was a native of Yiwu in Wuzhou, of the secular surname Li. The ancestors of the Li clan were descendants of Limu, a minister of the Yellow Emperor. In the Han dynasty there was Li Gui, Chancellor of Lu Commandery, who resided in Yan due to his official post and thus became a man of Lu. His grandfather and father were both agricultural officials, succeeding one another in simplicity. Shenzhi had chaste integrity from his youth, eagerly desiring to renounce the household; he approached Weixiao of Yunmen Temple to be his master. At the age of twelve, he took only one meal a day, cutting off eating after noon; he upheld the Great Compassion Dhāraṇī, mounted the platform to receive the precepts in accord with the Dharma, and was rigorous, strict, and reverently diligent. Soon came the Huichang persecution of the Dharma; though Shenzhi's appearance and dress were altered, he vowed to become a monk again—'grinding without growing thin, dyed without turning black'—which was manifest at that time. In the early Dazhong era, he returned to the monastic path. Wandering through Jiyang, he inspected a dhyāna cell and said, 'The fish in an imperial park dives into the marshy thickets—how fitting! This place is my marshy thicket.' He constantly empowered cups of water with mantras to cure hundreds of diseases, and those who drank them mostly recovered. The common people followed one another in coming, supplying him daily beyond count, calling him the Great Compassion Monk. In the middle of the Dazhong era, he entered the capital. At that time, Chancellor Pei Xiu of Shengping had dreamed beforehand that Shenzhi was coming; when they met, Pei was delighted. The Chancellor's daughter was possessed by ghosts and spirits; Shenzhi recited the dhāraṇī, and in seven days she was restored to health. Thereupon Pei submitted a memorial requesting the cloister plaque be inscribed 'Dazhong Shengshou', and an imperial gift of a bell from the Left Shence Army, an embroidered hanging from the Heavenly Empress, and five thousand fascicles of the Tripiṭaka were bestowed. Lord Pei wrote the inscription for the hall's plaque. Shenzhi passed away on Mount Dongbai in the twelfth month of the bingwu year of the Guangqi era, at the age of sixty-eight, with a dharma age of forty-eight. His seat was relocated back to the Southern Mountain of Jiyang to be placed in a pagoda.