宋高僧傳 27.30

27.30

釋文質，俗姓祝氏，尚丘之遠孫，衢州須江人也。叔氏為僧號唯寬，學通多本經論。寬被詔入長安，止大興善寺，重詔入內道場，兼請受菩薩戒。質隨寬入內。年十五，誦《法華》、《華嚴》、《維摩》等經。二十三受具，七日誦周戒本，二夏便講《四分律》。二十七，講通《俱舍》。四十年中，精曉諸大經論，後約束大悲、禹跡二禪師，參問心要。既博達矣，歸諸暨法樂寺領徒。時有虎來聽法，質摩其頂而去。後往永嘉，鍾會昌之搜簡，乃隱樂成縣大芙蓉山，胎息而已。大中重興，太守韋君累請不來，強置于榻，舁出州開元寺居。檀施駢貤，迴造大佛殿，并講堂、房廊、形像，并寫藏教，無不備焉。越州廉使沈貳卿命住呂后山院——本寧賁禪師舊化之地也。質唯居草庵而止。咸通二年十月十四日，告眾言別。十五日，端坐而化，春秋八十四，僧臘六十二。窆于雲谷，建塔。越州刺史段式為行錄焉。

Śramaṇa Wenzhi, whose secular surname was Zhu, was a distant descendant of Shangqiu, and a native of Xujiang in Quzhou. His uncle was a monk named Weikuan, whose learning encompassed many sūtras and treatises. Kuan was summoned by imperial decree to Chang'an, where he resided at Daxingshan Temple. He was summoned again to enter the Inner Place of Practice, and was additionally requested to receive the Bodhisattva Precepts. Zhi accompanied Kuan into the palace. At the age of fifteen, he recited such scriptures as the Lotus Sūtra, the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, and the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa. At twenty-three he received the upasampadā. In seven days he recited the entire prātimokṣa, and after two summer retreats he was lecturing on the Dharmaguptaka-vinaya (Four-Part Vinaya). At twenty-seven, he lectured on and mastered the Abhidharmakośa-śāstra. Over forty years, he gained an exquisite understanding of various great sūtras and treatises; later, he engaged in discipline under the two Chan masters Dapei and Yuji, inquiring into the essentials of the mind. Having attained wide understanding, he returned to Zhuji, where he led disciples at Fale Temple. At that time, a tiger came to listen to his exposition of the Dharma; Zhi stroked its head, and it went away. Later he went to Yongjia, and when he met with the searches and purges of Huichang, he hid himself away in Great Furong Mountain of Yuecheng County, simply practicing embryonic breathing. When [Buddhism] was restored in the Dazhong era, the prefect Lord Wei repeatedly invited him, but he did not come; the prefect forced him onto a couch and had him carried out to reside at the Kaiyuan Temple of the prefecture. Lay donations arrived in continuous succession, which he redirected to build a great Buddha hall, along with a lecture hall, cloisters, statues, and the transcription of the entire canon of scriptures, all fully furnished without omission. Vice Minister Shen, the surveillance commissioner of Yuezhou, instructed him to reside at the Lühoushan cloister—the old place of conversion of the former Chan Master Ningben. Zhi merely dwelt in a thatched hut and nothing more. On the fourteenth day of the tenth month of the second year of Xiantong, he bade farewell to the assembly. On the fifteenth day, he passed away sitting upright, at the age of eighty-four, with a saṅgha age of sixty-two. He was entombed in Yungou, where a stūpa was erected. Duan Shi, the prefect of Yuezhou, composed an account of his conduct.