神僧傳 7.15

7.15

通玄。姓李氏。太原東北人也。舉動之間不可量度。身長七尺餘。形貌紫色眉長過目。髭鬢如畫髮紺而螺施。脣紅潤齒密緻。戴樺皮冠衣大布。縫掖之制腰不束帶足不躡履。雖冬無皴（七旬切）皸（音軍）之患夏無垢汗之侵。放曠自得靡所拘絆。而該博古今洞精儒釋。發于辭氣若鏗巨鐘。而傾心華藏未始輟懷。開元七年春齎新華嚴經。曳笻自定襄而至并部盂縣之西南同潁鄉大賢村高山奴家止。於偏房中造論演暢華嚴。不出戶庭幾千三載。高與隣里怪而不測。每日食棗十顆柏葉餅一枚。餘無所須。其後移於南谷馬家古佛堂側。立小土屋閑處宴息焉。高氏供棗餅。亦至甞齎其論并經往韓氏莊。中路遇一虎。玄撫其背以所負經論搭載去土龕中。虎弭耳前行。其處無泉可汲用。會暴風雨拔老松去可百尺餘成池。約深丈許。其味香甘。至今呼為長者泉。里人多因愆陽臨之祈雨。或多應焉。又造論之時。室無脂燭。每夜秉翰於口兩角出白色光長尺餘。炳然通照以為恒矣。自到土龕俄有二女子。韶顏都雅。每日饋食一奩于龕前。玄食已徹器而去。凡經五載。至于紙墨供送無虧。論成泯然不現。所造論四十卷。總括八十卷經之文義。次決疑論四卷。一日鄉人聚飲之次。玄來謂之曰。汝等好住吾今去矣。鄉人驚怪謂為他適。乃曰。吾終矣。皆悲泣戀慕送至土龕。曰去住常也。鄉人下坡迴顧其處。雲霧昏暗。至子時儼然坐亡龕中。白色光從頂出上徹太虛。即開元十八年三月二十八日也。報齡九十六。達旦數人登山。見其龕室內蛇虺填滿莫得而前。相與啟告蛇虺交散。少長追感。結輿迎于太山之北。甃石為墳而葬之。葬日有二班鹿雙白鶴雜類鳥獸若悲戀之狀焉。

Tongxuan, whose secular surname was Li, was a native of the northeast of Taiyuan. His movements and demeanor were immeasurable. He was over seven feet tall, with a purplish complexion and eyebrows that extended past his eyes. His mustache and sideburns were like a painting, his hair was dark blue and curled into spirals, his lips were red and moist, and his teeth were closely set. He wore a birch-bark hat and coarse cloth garments made in the broad-sleeved Confucian style, without a belt around his waist or shoes on his feet. In winter he had no affliction of chapped skin, and in summer he was untouched by dirt or sweat. Unrestrained and self-composed, he was bound by nothing. Thoroughly versed in antiquity and the present, he had penetrated the subtleties of both Confucianism and Buddhism. When he spoke, his voice resonated like the tolling of a great bell. Devoting his heart to the Huayan [Avataṃsaka], he never set it aside. In the spring of the seventh year of the Kaiyuan era, carrying the new Avataṃsaka Sūtra and leaning on a walking staff, he traveled from Dingxiang to the southwest of Yu County in Bingbu, stopping at the house of Gao Shannu in Daxian Village of Tongying Township. There, in a side room, he composed a commentary expounding the Avataṃsaka, not stepping outside the courtyard for nearly three years. Gao and his neighbors found him strange and unfathomable. Each day he ate only ten dates and one cypress-leaf cake, requiring nothing else. Later, he moved to the side of an old Buddha hall belonging to the Ma family in the southern valley, where he built a small earthen hut and dwelt at leisure to rest. The Gao family continued to supply him with dates and cakes. He once carried his commentary along with the sūtra to the estate of the Han family. On the way he encountered a tiger; Tongxuan patted its back and loaded the scriptures and commentary he carried onto it, carrying them away to an earthen grotto, the tiger walking ahead with ears flattened. That place had no spring from which to draw water, but it happened that a violent storm uprooted an old pine more than a hundred feet away, forming a pool about ten feet deep with sweet and fragrant water. To this day it is called the Elder's Spring. Whenever there was a drought, villagers often went there to pray for rain, and their prayers were frequently answered. Moreover, while he was composing the commentary, there were neither candles nor lamp oil in the room; each night as he held his brush, white light over a foot long emanated from both corners of his mouth, shining brightly and illuminating the room as a constant occurrence. From the time he arrived at the earthen grotto, two maidens of blooming beauty and refined elegance suddenly appeared, each day bringing a box of food to the front of the grotto; after Tongxuan had eaten, they cleared the vessels and departed. This continued for five years, during which paper and ink were also supplied without lack. Once the commentary was completed, they vanished without a trace. The commentary he composed was in forty fascicles, comprehensively summarising the text and meaning of the eighty-fascicle sūtra; he followed this with the *Treatise Resolving Doubts* (*Jueyi lun*) in four fascicles. One day, while the local villagers were gathered drinking, Tongxuan came and said to them: 'Take care, all of you; I am now departing.' The villagers were startled and puzzled, thinking he was traveling elsewhere, but he said: 'I am dying.' They all wept with longing and affection and escorted him to the earthen grotto. He said: 'Coming and going are constant.' As the villagers walked down the slope and looked back toward the place, clouds and mist shrouded it in darkness. At the hour of zi, he passed away sitting upright within the grotto, a white light issuing from his crown and piercing up into the great void. This was on the twenty-eighth day of the third month in the eighteenth year of the Kaiyuan era. His age was ninety-six. At daybreak, several men climbed the mountain and saw that his grotto room was completely filled with vipers and serpents, so that no one could advance. They addressed them together with prayers, whereupon the vipers and serpents dispersed. Young and old, moved with remembrance, constructed a litter and bore him to the north of Mount Tai, where they laid stones to build a tomb and buried him. On the day of the burial, two spotted deer, a pair of white cranes, and various kinds of birds and beasts appeared, as if in sorrow and longing.