宋高僧傳 26.25

26.25

Shi Zengren, whose secular surname was Shi, was a native of Chenliu in Peiguo. At the age when he could attend school, he enrolled in the local academy. Scanning the bamboo slips of the hundred schools, he grasped their spirit. He was also skilled in literature, and accompanied the evaluation officers, but repeatedly took the examinations without passing. At the beginning of the Huichang era, he journeyed lightly to the northern frontier; seeking out ancient remains in the Helan Mountains, he obtained pure land in the Baicao Valley. He aroused the bodhicitta, abruptly hung up his Confucian cap, and went straight to the Śākyan fold. Thereupon he cut the grass and knotted thatch to make a hut, redoubling his diligent vigor. The Qiang and Hu tribes vied to arrive and offer him ghee and curd. By the fifth year, the military commissioner Li Yanzuo praised his moral integrity, and constructed a separate courtyard at Longxing Temple, naming it Baicao—deriving the name from the original ground of his first cultivation of the Way. Ren pricked his flesh to write various scriptures in blood. In the seventh year of the Dazhong era, Lord Li, concerned over his emaciation, personally went to urge him gently, saying: "Why should the Master cultivate only himself and practice the Hīnayāna? Why not preserve your vital nature and uphold the teaching of the Dharma? Its benefit would be vast!" Ren remained steadfastly set in his intent, and thereupon composed the *San jiao huishang lun* (Discourse on Injury in the Three Teachings) to show his aspiration. The commissioner read it and revered him even more. In the ninth year, on reading the *Dabei jing*, as he investigated the forty-two arms down to the "fearless hand," he was filled with doubt and erected an altar; after praying for a full ten days, its correct mudrā manifested in empty space, both fists clearly visible. He then commanded a painter to portray this arm. When some mocked and slandered it, Ren again prayed with purified sincerity, and as the painter washed his brushes in a bronze bowl, they suddenly brought about a miraculous flower of precious nature, its stem, calyx, tendrils, and leaves all vividly bright, so that all who saw it marvelled in admiration. On the tenth day of the seventh month of the twelfth year of the Xiantong era, he showed his extinction at Baicao Courtyard, at the age of fifty-nine. On the seventeenth day of the tenth month, his spirit was interred south of the Shuiguan, and a stūpa was erected. Earlier, Ren had pricked his blood to write scriptures totaling two hundred and eighty-three scrolls. He painted a Vairocana with a pavilion thirty-five feet high and a doorway sixteen feet high. He drafted the designs to paint three scrolls of *The Merit of Great Compassion*, and himself composed the *Dabei lun* in six scrolls, all of which were stored in chests. Later, the military commissioner Tang Hengfu, revering his surviving traces, memorialized requesting imperial commendation; an imperial decree bestowed on the master the posthumous title Guanghui, and the stūpa was named Nianding. His disciple Wuzhe was also a senior disciple capable of going far; carrying two scrolls of the blood-written scriptures and one auspicious flower bowl, he proceeded to the palace to present them, and an imperial decree bestowed the purple robe upon him. He died during the Tianfu era. Then, at the beginning of the Qianhua era of the Liang, Han Xun, the Director of the Chancellery and Prince of Xiping, recorded the remaining traces and memorialized them; Taizu decreed that the posthumous title Fakong be conferred, and separately bestowed a square purple robe, which brought honor to the frontier. In the Tongguang era of the Later Tang, the retainer Xue Zhaoji composed a stele for him.