大明高僧傳 2.19

2.19

It is not known what country Śramaṇa Shi Dayiba came from. As a young bhikṣu, he served the Imperial Preceptor. For thirteen years, he attended him and listened to his discourses; through long cultivation and influence, he blossomed into a fine vessel. In all the vinaya, treatises, and esoteric tantras of the Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna, he grasped the ultimate principle to which they lead. When the Imperial Preceptor returned to the West, Dayiba escorted him to Lintao, where he was instructed to rely on the Mahāsattva Chos kyi. For nineteen years, he heard what he had never heard before, and his cultivation grew ever more refined. The people of Qin invited him to reside at Gufu Temple. There was none of the six pāramitās that he did not cultivate, and he was also well-versed in the teachings of Xianshou. Thereupon, his reputation spread in all directions, and his way was revered across three imperial reigns. When Yuan Emperor Wuzong ascended the throne, he summoned him to inquire into the essentials of the Dharma; his answers suited the imperial intent, and though the bestowals were lavish, he declined and would not accept them. Before long, he begged to return, which was granted, intending to spend his remaining days as he wished. Soon afterward, he was summoned back to the capital to broadly propagate the Dharma transformation. The Emperor attended in person to listen, specially bestowing upon him the title Tripiṭaka Master of Vast Dharma and Universal Deliverance, and ordered that a gold seal and a purple square robe be cast and made to honour him. Princes, dukes, and high ministers were decreed to consult him on essential questions of the mind. On the sixteenth day of the eighth month in the fifth year of Yanyou [1318], without illness, he sat upright and underwent transformation. His age was seventy-three. The Emperor ordered both palaces to bestow textiles to assist the burial; the Crown Prince and chief ministers offered sacrifices; and the authorities were commanded to escort his whole body to be entombed in a stūpa. He was posthumously named State Preceptor Yousheng.