宋高僧傳 9.22

9.22

釋希遷，姓陳氏，端州高要人也。母方懷孕，不喜葷血。及生岐嶷，雖在孩提，不煩保母。既冠，然諾自許，未嘗以氣色忤人。其鄉洞䝤，民畏鬼神，多淫祀，率以牛酒，祚作聖望。遷輒往毀叢祠，奪牛而歸。歲盈數十，鄉老不能禁其理焉。聞大鑒禪師南來，學心相踵。遷乃直往，大鑒衎然持其手，且戲之曰：「苟為我弟子，當肖。」遷[這-言+(占@口)]爾而笑曰：「諾。」既而靈機一發，廓若初霽。自是上下羅浮，往來三峽間。開元十六年，羅浮受具戒，是年歸就山，夢與大鑒同乘一龜，泳於深池。覺而占曰：「龜是靈智也，池是性海也。吾與師乘靈智遊性海久矣，又何夢邪！」後聞廬陵青原山思禪師為曹溪補處，又攝衣從之。當時思公之門，學者麏至。及遷之來，乃曰：「角雖多，一麟足矣。」天寶初，始造衡山南寺。寺之東有石狀如臺，乃結庵其上，杼載絕岳。眾仰之，號曰石頭和尚焉。初，嶽中有固、瓚、讓三禪師，皆曹溪門下，僉謂其徒曰：「彼石頭真師子吼，必能使汝眼清涼。」由是門人歸慕焉。或問解脫，曰：「誰能縛汝？」問淨土，曰：「誰能垢汝？」其答對簡速，皆此類也。廣德二年，門人請下于梁端。自江西主大寂，湖南主石頭，往來憧憧，不見二大士為無知矣。貞元六年庚午歲十二月二十五日順化，春秋九十一，僧臘六十三。門人慧朗、振朗、波利、道悟、道銑、智舟相與建塔于東嶺。塔成三十載，國子博士劉軻——素明玄理，欽尚祖風——與道銑相遇，盛述先師之道。軻追仰前烈，為碑紀德，長慶中也。勅諡無際大師，塔曰見相焉。

Shi Xiqian had the secular surname Chen and was a native of Gaoyao in Duanzhou. When his mother was pregnant, she took no pleasure in pungent roots or meat. When he was born, he was remarkably precocious; even in early childhood, he caused no trouble to his nurse. Once capped into adulthood, he held strictly to his promises and never offended others through his countenance or temperament. In his native district of Dongliao, the populace feared ghosts and spirits and engaged extensively in excessive sacrifices, routinely offering oxen and wine to invoke divine blessings. Qian would invariably go to destroy these shrines and seize the oxen to return home with them. These numbered several tens each year, yet the village elders could not restrain his principled conduct. Hearing that Dhyāna Master Dajian was coming south, his aspiration to learn led him to follow in his footsteps. Qian went straight to him. Dajian gladly took his hand and playfully remarked, "If you become my disciple, you must resemble me." Qian smiled broadly and said, "Yes." Soon after, his spiritual capacity was triggered, expanding clearly as if the sky had just cleared after rain. From then on, he traversed Mount Luofu and journeyed back and forth through the Three Gorges. In the sixteenth year of the Kaiyuan era, he received the full precepts at Luofu. In that same year, he returned to the mountain and dreamt that he and Dajian rode together on a single turtle, swimming in a deep pool. Upon waking, he divined: "The turtle is spiritual wisdom; the pool is the ocean of nature. My master and I have long ridden spiritual wisdom and roamed the ocean of nature—what need is there for another dream!" Later, hearing that Dhyāna Master Si of Mount Qingyuan in Luling was the designated successor of Caoxi, he packed his robes and went to follow him. At that time, students flocked to Master Si's gate like herds of deer. When Qian arrived, Si said, "Though horns are many, a single qilin is enough." At the beginning of the Tianbao era, he first built the South Temple on Mount Heng. To the east of the temple was a boulder shaped like a terrace; he erected a hermitage upon it, perched high on the isolated peak. The assembly looked up to him and called him the "Rock Monk" (Shitou Heshang). Earlier, there were three dhyāna masters on the peak—Gu, Zan, and Rang—all under the gate of Caoxi. They unanimously told their disciples, "That Shitou truly possesses the lion's roar; he will surely make your eyes cool and clear." From this, disciples turned toward him in admiration. Someone asked about liberation, and he replied, "Who is binding you?" Someone asked about the Pure Land, and he replied, "Who is defiling you?" His replies were concise and swift, all of this sort. In the second year of the Guangde era, his disciples invited him down to Liangduan. From then on, Daji presided over Jiangxi and Shitou presided over Hunan; students shuttled back and forth, and not to see these two great masters was considered sheer ignorance. On the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month in the sixth year of the Zhenyuan era, a gengwu year, he passed away in the natural course of transformation at the age of ninety-one, with a saṅgha age of sixty-three. His disciples Huilang, Zhenlang, Boli, Daowu, Daoxian, and Zhizhou together erected a stupa for him on the Eastern Ridge. Thirty years after the stupa was completed, Liu Ke, an erudite of the National University—who had long understood profound principles and deeply revered the ancestral tradition—met Daoxian, who extensively related the Dao of their late master. Ke, revering his past virtue, composed a stele inscription commemorating his virtue during the Changqing era. An imperial decree bestowed the posthumous title Grand Master Wuji, and named his stupa Jianxiang.