宋高僧傳 7.30

7.30

Shi Sengzhao, surnamed Zhang, was a native of Fanyang. At age fourteen he left home and went to Minzhong Temple. His intelligence was peerless, and his bearing was magnificent and distinguished. When he first received scriptures and verses, he recited thousands of words daily, and what his eyes perused surpassed what he had practiced in previous lives. When he expressed opinions and views, he showed the manner of a mature elder. He was then ordained as a śrāmaṇera. Since receiving full ordination, over the course of two intercalary months, the scriptures he had memorized already exceeded six great sections—namely, the Suvarṇaprabhāsa, the Mahākāruṇika, the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa, the Lotus, and other scriptures. In addition, he listened to and investigated scriptures and treatises; within ten-odd years, the deep texts and hidden meanings became clearer to him than the indigo from which blue is extracted. During the Tianyou era, he traveled south, and when he reached Zhongshan, Commander Wang Chuzhi invited him to reside at Fahua Temple. Successive military commissioners invited him; the Grand Preceptor, the Duke of Longxi, repeatedly submitted memorials recommending that he be bestowed a purple square robe and given the title Grand Master Zhizhen ('Ultimate Truth'). Next, Lord Ma of Fufeng invited him to become saṅgha administrator, but it was not what he desired. When he arrived in Luoyang, an order was issued for him to deliver lectures on the Lotus Sūtra, and he stayed at Falin Cloister. Moreover, in the bustling imperial capital where giants of the Dharma converged, when Zhao preached and guided, they all submitted to him with admiration. On the twenty-sixth day of the third month of the first year of Qianyou, he showed extinction in the lecture cloister, at the age of seventy, with a saṅgha age of fifty. The fourfold assembly wailed and longed for him; Lord Li, the Secretariat Director, who had governed Yiding, had formerly acted as his external protector, and while again defending Luoyang, he provided everything necessary for the final funeral rites. On the third day of the fourth month, his spirit was moved to the south of the city, where the cremation method was performed; they collected several hundred red and moist grains of śarīra. Lord Ding of Jiyang, who held the post of defending official, erected a pagoda for him on the southern ridge of Guanghua Temple. In his lifetime, Zhao delivered more than seventy lecture series, striving diligently for the Dharma. His disciples were very numerous. Prime Minister Lord Masun revered him the most, and presented him with dozens of poems from first to last, which became a celebrated topic in Luoyang.