神僧傳 2.12

2.12

Shi Fakuang's surname was Gao. He was a native of Xiapi. Residing in Wuxing, he lost both parents at an early age. He served his stepmother and was renowned for his filial piety. When his stepmother died, he performed the mourning rites fully according to proper ritual. After the mourning period ended, he renounced household life and served the śramaṇa Zhu Tanyin as his teacher. Yin once fell gravely ill, and Kuang prayed with sincerity and practiced repentance day and night for seven days. On the seventh day, a radiant light was suddenly seen illuminating the doors of Yin's room. Yin felt as if someone were striking him with a hand, and his suffering was thereupon cured. Later, Kuang took leave of his teacher to travel far and wide, broadly seeking the essentials of the sūtras. Returning, he stayed in a stone cave on Mount Qingshan in Yuqian. Emperor Jianwen of the Jin dynasty dispatched Qu An, the Grand Administrator of Tangyi, to convey an imperial edict from afar inquiring after his health, and also to consult him about an inauspicious star, requesting Kuang to apply his spiritual effort. Kuang thereupon undertook fasting and repentance together with his disciples, and after a short time the calamity was extinguished. Many common people of the eastern region contracted pestilence, and whenever they prayed to him, they were immediately cured. One who could see ghosts said that wherever Kuang went or stayed, there were constantly several tens of ghosts and spirits guarding him before and behind. People of the time all marveled at this. In the first year of Yuanxing, he died at the age of seventy-six, with fifty-two monastic years.