宋高僧傳 7.20

7.20

釋可周，俗姓傅，晉陵人也。出家于本部建元寺。循良厥性，切問于勤。友生勉之曰：「非其地，樹之不生。今豫章經謂之江，論謂之海，胡不往請業乎？」周感其開導，挈囊達彼，遇雲表法師盛集，窮《法華》慈恩大疏，日就月將，斡運深趣。昭宗初，自江西迴台、越之間，命其啟發。梁乾化二年，受杭州龍興寺召開演，黑、白眾恒有半千。兩浙武肅王錢氏命於天寶堂夜為冥司講經，鬼神現形扈衛，往往人覩焉。甞有祭銅官祠神，巫氏久請不下，後附巫曰：「吾隨從大神去西關天寶堂聽法方迴。」武肅王聞而鄭重，賚周中金如意并鉢、紫衣一副，加號精志通明焉。以天成元年，終于觀音院本房。初，周乾寧四年戾止台州松山寺講疏，闕鈔，遂依疏節成五卷，曰《評經鈔》，《音訓》五帖，解宣律師《法華序鈔》一卷，行于浙之左右。弟子相繼不絕。

Shi Kezhou, whose secular surname was Fu, was a native of Jinling. He went forth from home at Jianyuan Temple in his home commandery. By nature compliant and virtuous, he was diligent in inquiring and learning. A fellow student urged him, saying, "A tree does not grow if the soil is not right. Nowadays, in Yuzhang, the sūtras are said to be like rivers and the treatises like the sea—why do you not go there to seek instruction?" Zhou was moved by his guidance, packed his bags, and arrived there. Encountering the great assembly of Master of Dharma Yunbiao, he thoroughly investigated the great Ci'en commentary on the Lotus Sūtra, making daily and monthly progress and grasping its profound meaning. At the beginning of Emperor Zhaozong's reign, he returned from Jiangxi to the region between Tiantai and Yue, where he was requested to teach and enlighten others. In the second year of Qianhua of the Liang dynasty, he accepted an invitation from Longxing Temple in Hangzhou to preach and expound, with an audience of monastics and laypeople that constantly numbered around five hundred. Qian, King Wusu of the Two Zhe, commanded him to lecture on the sūtras at night in the Tianbao Hall on behalf of the netherworld administration; ghosts and spirits manifested their forms as escorting guards, and people frequently saw them. Once, when a sacrifice was offered to the spirit of the Tongguan Shrine, the medium could not induce the deity to descend after a long invocation. Later, possessing the medium, the spirit said, "I followed the Great Deity to the Tianbao Hall at the Western Pass to listen to the Dharma, and have only just returned." Hearing this, King Wusu treated him with great reverence and bestowed on Zhou a gold ruyi sceptre along with an alms-bowl and a set of purple robes, conferring on him the honorific title "Jingzhi Tongming" (Pure Resolve of Penetrating Luminescence). In the first year of Tiancheng, he died in his own chamber at Guanyin Cloister. Earlier, in the fourth year of Qianning, when Zhou arrived at Songshan Temple in Taizhou to lecture on the commentary, there were no explanatory notes; he thus abridged it according to the commentary into five rolls, titled Pingjing chao (Appraisal of the Sūtra Commentary), along with Yinxun (Phonetics and Glosses) in five booklets, and an explanation of Vinaya Master Xuan's Fahua xu chao (Commentary on the Preface to the Lotus Sūtra) in one roll, which circulated throughout Eastern and Western Zhejiang. His disciples succeeded one another without interruption.