宋高僧傳 4.4

4.4

Śramaṇa Kuiji, whose courtesy name was Hongdao, had the secular surname Yuchi and was a native of Chang'an in Jingzhao. The ancestors of the Yuchi clan arose alongside the Later Wei, known as the 'Yuchi Tribe', akin to the feudal states of China; upon entering China, they took their tribal name as their surname. Yue, the Wei General Who Pacifies the East, was the ancestor six generations before Mengdu, who fathered Luojia, a western garrison commander of Daizhou under the Sui; Luojia was Ji's grandfather. His deceased father was named Zong, a Tang General of the Left Chin-wu Guards, Area Commander of Songzhou, and Founding Duke of Jiangyou County. De, the Duke of E, was his uncle, who has a biography in the Book of Tang. Ji's mother, Lady Pei, dreamt that she held the lunar disc in her palm and swallowed it; she awoke to find herself pregnant. When her full term was fulfilled and he was born, he was unlike ordinary children; as he grew older, he recited and studied, his spiritual comprehension acute and lucid. Master Xuanzang first saw him on the road, with refined brows and bright eyes, his demeanor unconstrained, and said: 'Seed of a general's house—it is truly no mistake! If cause and condition should align to ordain him as my disciple, then my Dharma will have someone to entrust it to.' He further recalled that during his journey back from India, he had consulted a Nirgrantha for divination and obtained an exceedingly auspicious hexagram: 'The Master needs only to return east, and a wise talent will be born.' He then called upon the General of the North Gate, subtly urging that he be allowed to leave home. The father said: 'His nature is coarse and unruly; how could he bear your instruction?' Xuanzang said: 'Such capacity and bearing could not be born but of the General, and could not be recognized but by myself.' Although the father assented, Ji also adamantly refused. Being urged and encouraged repeatedly, he bowed to comply with the command, boldly raising his voice to say: 'Allow me three conditions, and only then will I vow to leave home: not cutting off sexual desire, [eating] meat and blood, and [eating] past noon.' Xuanzang first led him on with desire so that he might later enter the Buddha's wisdom, and pretended to consent. On journeys, carriage after carriage carried what he previously desired; hence in the Guanzhong region there was the saying, 'the Three-Cart Ācārya'. This was in the twenty-second year of Zhenguan. Another account notes that Ji's own preface states: 'At the age of nine I suffered bereavement, and gradually grew detached from worldly vanity.' If this was so, the tale of the three carts is a gross slander. At the age of seventeen, he finally entered the monastic ranks. Upon entering the Dharma, by imperial decree he became Master Xuanzang's disciple, initially residing at Guangfu Temple. Soon, receiving a special decree, those of brilliant and exceptional intellect were selected to enter Great Cien Temple. Attending upon Master Xuanzang in person, he studied the languages of the Five Indias; he resolved perplexities and untied knots, organizing everything systematically. None who heard or saw him failed to sigh in admiration. The hundreds of skandhakas and vargas—with a single glance he mastered them without error; why would he need to recall them a second time? At the age of twenty-five, he answered the imperial decree to translate scriptures, lecturing on and mastering over thirty texts of the Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna teachings. Exercising originality and devoting his mind, he composed writings diligently; asking with earnestness and reflecting on what was near at hand, his standard was not far off. He authored commentaries that totaled around a hundred fascicles. In Xuanzang's translation of the Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi-śāstra, he initially received it together with four others—Fang, Shang, and Guang—for polishing, brush-holding, textual checking, and compiling doctrinal meanings. After a few mornings, Ji sought to withdraw. Xuanzang asked him about it, and he replied: 'In the evening one dreams of the golden visage, and in the morning one hastens to the White Horse; though one might obtain the dross of the Dharma gate, one loses the purity of the profound source. I do not wish to establish merit through mixed compilation. If one single definitive work is composed according to your intention, the responsibility will have a single person to return to.' Xuanzang then granted this. Sending the three worthies away on reasonable grounds, he entrusted it solely to Ji; this was truly conferring responsibilities according to capacity. Ji then recorded what he heard as he received it, and when the lectures concluded, the commentary was completed. Before long, Dharma Master Woncheuk of Ximing Temple, also an eminent talent, bribed the gatekeeper at the lecture site of the Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi-śāstra with gold, concealed his form, and listened closely to piece together [the teachings], also elucidating the treatise's principles. With only a few sessions remaining, Woncheuk struck the mallet to assemble the monks at Ximing Temple and announced he would lecture on this treatise. When Ji heard of it, he felt ashamed to come behind him and was exceedingly downcast. Xuanzang encouraged him, saying: 'Although Master Cheuk has authored a commentary, he has not attained Hetuvidyā.' He then lectured on the treatises of Dignāga for him; Ji became grandly proficient in the 'three parts of a syllogism', freely establishing and refuting, composing treatises and setting up chapters, unequaled by any before him. It is also said that he requested Master Xuanzang to lecture on the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra solely for him, but Master Cheuk again eavesdropped as before and lectured on it first. Xuanzang said: 'The doctrine of the five natures—only you will circulate it, no one else.' Later he traveled in person to Mount Wutai, ascended Taihang, and lodged in an ancient Buddhist shrine in Xihe. He dreamt that he was halfway up a mountain; below the crags were countless people crying out in suffering, in the dark and dim, unbearable to hear at first. On foot he climbed those tiered peaks, all of lapis lazuli color, commanding a full view of all lands. Looking up, he saw a city, from which a voice said: 'Halt, halt! Ah, Master Ji should not have reached here.' In a moment, two divine youths came out of the city and asked: 'Do you see the sentient beings suffering for their sins beneath the mountain?' He replied: 'I hear their cries, but do not see their forms.' The youths then threw him a sword hilt, saying: 'Cut open your belly and you will see.' Ji cut open his own belly; when it opened, two rays of light illuminated the base of the mountain, revealing countless people enduring extreme suffering. Then the youths entered the city, took out two scrolls of paper and a brush, threw them down to him, and after he received them in his hands, they departed. When dawn arrived, his wonder did not cease. The following night, there was a light in the temple that did not extinguish for a long time. Upon searching for it, among several scrolls emitting light, he reached in and obtained the Sūtra on Maitreya's Rebirth Above. He then recalled his former dream: 'Surely Maitreya is commanding me to compose a commentary to clarify its principles.' Then, as he took up the brush, fourteen grains of śarīra dropped from the brush tip, about the size of Wu cherries, of a lovely red color. Next, others fell scatteringly, shaped like grains of yellow millet. Another account says that when he traveled to Taiyuan to propagate the Dharma, three carts followed him: the front cart carried boxes of scriptures and treatises, the middle cart he rode himself, and the rear cart carried singing girls, maidservants, and fine food. Along the way he met an old man who asked who rode [with him]. He replied: 'My family.' The old man said: 'Your understanding of the Dharma is exquisite, yet bringing your family along is perhaps not fitting for the teaching.' Hearing this, Ji immediately repented of his former error and traveled on alone with detached ease. The old man was in fact the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī. This is also idle gossip. When attending Xuanzang in participating in translations at Yuhua Palace, where would the three carts have been placed? Wherever Ji went to convert disciples, those who benefited were numerous. Traveling east to Boling, he was invited to lecture on the Lotus Sūtra, whereupon he composed the Great Commentary. Upon returning to his original temple, he constantly associated with old acquaintances from the translation bureau. He repeatedly visited Vinaya Master Daoxuan. Daoxuan was often attended by messengers of the heavenly kings on duty, or received secret reports on various matters. On that day, Ji left just as they arrived. Daoxuan reproached them for being late, and they replied: 'Just now a Mahāyāna bodhisattva was here, accompanied by many escorting good deities; our divine powers were restrained by them, which is why it was so.' In the first year of Yongchun, renwu, he displayed illness, and on the thirteenth day of the eleventh month he passed away in the Translation Cloister of Cien Temple, at the age of fifty-one; his dharma age is unrecorded. He was buried on the northern canal of Fan Village, interred beside the tomb mound of the Tripiṭaka Master Xuanzang. His disciples wept with grief; those who held the funerary cords and attended the funeral from near and far, monastics and laypeople alike, filled the mountains and valleys. In his life Ji was always vigorous; he made an image of Maitreya, and before the image he recited the Bodhisattva Precepts once each day, aspiring to be reborn in Tuṣita to fulfill his vow. Thereupon a miraculous light shone from his entire body, brilliant and magnificent to behold. He also made a jade-stone image of the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī on Mount Wutai, and after transcribing the Prajñā Sūtra in gold characters, it also emitted a miraculous light. His disciples successively took Ji as their arbiter, regarding him as if Xuanzang were still present. On the guiyou day of the seventh month in the fourth year of Taihe, gengxu, his pagoda was relocated to Pingyuan; the śramaṇa Lingjian of Great Anguo Temple inspected the pagoda pavilion, and moving the coffin, he saw that Ji had forty teeth unbroken, like jade. The crowd snapped their fingers, proclaiming it to be one of the marks of a Buddha. Today, portraits of him in Buddhist temples throughout the realm are titled 'Portrait of the Master of a Hundred Commentaries', with a eulogy composed by Emperor Gaozong the Great. Another account says Xuanzong. Ji was tall, robust, and dignified, with the martial bearing of a brave warrior; yet his compassionate and beneficent heart and his untiring instruction of others were innate. As for his auspicious signs, he carried a jade occiput at the nape of his neck, his facial features were grand, and when his ten fingers were clasped, they resembled a mudrā. As for the first character of his name appearing inconsistently, it is because the Biography of Cien states: In the third year of Longshuo, when Master Xuanzang finished translating the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra at Yuhua Palace, on 'the twenty-second day of the eleventh month of that year, he ordered Mahāyāna Ji to submit a memorial requesting an imperial preface. On the seventh day of the twelfth month, the Receptionist Feng Yi proclaimed it.' From this, some call him 'Lingji', the Kaiyuan Catalogue has 'Kuiji', and some say 'Chengji', which is mistaken. That work calls him 'Mahāyāna Ji' probably because Huili and Yancong did not use his full name out of respect, hence calling him 'Mahāyāna Ji', just as one might say 'Buxing Tai' [for Shengtal], or just as 'respectfully dispatched Mahāyāna Guang to submit a memorial' is used. Today he is called Dharma Master Cien throughout the realm.