神僧傳 4.7

4.7

Śramaṇa Baozhi, originally surnamed Zhu, was a native of Jincheng. At first, a woman of the Zhu family heard a baby crying in an eagle's nest; she placed a ladder against the tree, retrieved him, and raised him as her son. At the age of seven, he relied on the monk Jian of Zhongshan to renounce household life and cultivate the practice of meditation. He wandered between Mount Wan and the Jianshui river. His face was square and as bright and translucent as a mirror, while his hands and feet were entirely like bird claws. He dwelt at the Daolin Monastery in Jiangdong. Around the beginning of the Dashi era of the Song, he suddenly became eccentric and extraordinary. He had no fixed residence and no set meal times. His hair was several inches long, and he constantly walked barefoot through the streets and alleys, carrying a ringed staff. At the head of the staff he hung scissors and a mirror, or occasionally one or two bolts of silk. During the Jianyuan era of the Qi, his extraordinary marks gradually manifested. He would go without food for several days without showing any signs of hunger. When he spoke with people, it was difficult to understand at first, but later his words all proved accurate. At times he would compose poems with words like prophecies. The gentry and commoners of Jiangdong all served him together. Emperor Wu of the Qi thought that he was deluding the masses and arrested and detained him in Jiankang. At dawn, people saw him entering the marketplace; yet when they returned to check the prison, Zhi was still there. Zhi told the jailer, "Outside the gate there are two carriages of food coming, with rice placed in golden bowls; you may take it." Shortly thereafter, Crown Prince Wenhui and Prince Ziliang of Jingling both sent food as offerings to Zhi, precisely as he had said. When the Magistrate of Jiankang, Lü Wenxian, reported the matter, Emperor Wu immediately welcomed him into the palace and lodged him in the rear hall. Once, when the inner court was cleared for a banquet, Zhi also left with the crowd. Shortly afterward, atop Mount Jingyang there was still a Zhi with seven monks. The Emperor was angered and sent officers to investigate his chamber. The officers reported, "Zhi left long ago and is at the Secretariat, currently smearing his body with black ink." At that time, the Monastic Controller Faxian wished to present a robe to Zhi, and sent messengers to seek him at both Longguang and Jibin Monasteries. At both they said, "He stayed overnight yesterday and has just left." The messenger also went to the home of Marquis Li Bo, which Zhi often visited, to search for him. Bo said, "Zhi was circumambulating and practicing here yesterday, and has slept until morning without waking." When the messenger returned and reported to Xian, they only then realised that his body had stayed overnight in three different places. Zhi would often walk half-naked in the depths of winter. The śramaṇa Baoliang wished to present him with a patchwork robe; before he could speak, Zhi suddenly came, grabbed the patchwork robe, and left. Later, he availed himself of divine power for Emperor Wu of the Qi, causing him to see Emperor Gao in the subterranean realms constantly enduring the torment of awls and knives. From then on, the Emperor permanently abolished the punishment of awls and knives. Emperor Wu also often summoned Zhi to the Hualin Garden. Zhi suddenly came to see him wearing a triple-layered cloth hat. Shortly thereafter, Emperor Wu passed away, and Crown Prince Wenhui and the Prince of Yuzhang died in succession. During the Yongming era, Zhi regularly resided in the rear hall of the Eastern Palace. One day at dawn, as he walked in and out through the gate, he suddenly cried, "Blood on the gate will stain my robe!" and lifted his robe and ran past. When Prince Yulin was assassinated and his body was carried out in a carriage, this emperor's neck blood flowed onto the threshold of the gate. Hu Xie, the Commandant of the Guards of the Qi, fell ill and invited Zhi. Zhi wrote on the invitation, "I shall bend [my steps] tomorrow." The next day, he never went. That day, Xie died, and his corpse was carried back to his residence. Zhi said, "Tomorrow the corpse will be brought out." When Yin Qizhi, the Marshal of the Grand Defender of the Qi, was about to follow Chen Xianda to garrison Jiangzhou, he took his leave of Zhi. Zhi drew a tree on paper with a crow atop it, and told him, "When in urgent danger, you may climb this." Later, Xianda committed treason and left Qizhi to guard the province. When Xianda was defeated, Qizhi fled into Mount Lu. The pursuing cavalry were about to overtake him when Qizhi saw a tree in the forest with a crow upon it, just as Zhi had drawn. He understood and climbed it; the crow never flew away. The pursuers saw the crow, assumed no one was there, and turned back; thus he was finally spared. Sang Yan, a cavalry officer of the Qi, was about to plot rebellion and went to visit Zhi. Seeing him from afar, Zhi ran and shouted aloud, "Besieging the Palace City, wanting to rebel, heads will be chopped off and bellies slit open!" More than ten days later, the plot was uncovered; Yan fled to Zhufang, was captured, and indeed had his head chopped off and his belly slit open. The Loyal and Ardent Prince of Poyang of the Liang once invited Zhi to his mansion; Zhi suddenly ordered people to fetch chaste-tree branches in great haste, and once obtained, placed them above the gate, with no one understanding the reason. Shortly afterward, the Prince went out to serve as regional inspector of Jingzhou. Instances of his prescient foreknowledge were not limited to this. Zhi frequently went back and forth between the Xinghuang and Jingming monasteries. When Emperor Wu of the Liang ascended the throne, he issued an edict saying: "Lord Zhi's traces blend with the dust and dirt, while his spirit roams the dark and quiet. Water and fire cannot burn or wet him; serpents and tigers cannot assail or terrify him. If we speak of his Buddhist understanding, he is beyond the śrāvakas; if we discuss his reclusion, he surpasses the lofty immortals. How could common mundane people with ordinary feelings seek to restrain him with mere rules? How vulgar and lowly it is to have reached such a point! From now on, let him come and go, entering and leaving at will, and let no one restrict him again." From then on, Zhi frequently entered and left the imperial palace. Once, at the Palace City, he ate minced raw fish in the presence of Emperor Wu of the Liang, with Crown Prince Zhaoming and various other princes in attendance. When the meal was over, Emperor Wu said, "I have not tasted flavour for over twenty years; why do you do so, Master?" Lord Zhi then spat out small fish, their scales and tails intact and swimming lively. Emperor Wu was deeply amazed. Even now in Moling there are still "half-eaten minced fish." In the winter of the fifth year of the Tianjian era, there was a drought. Every sacrifice for rain was performed, yet no rain fell. Zhi suddenly submitted a memorial stating: "Zhi's illness has not abated; I beg my life from the authorities. If I do not report it, the authorities should apply the rod. I wish to have the Śrīmālādevī-sūtra expounded in the Huaguang Hall to clear up the drought and bring rain." Emperor Wu of the Liang then ordered the śramaṇa Fayun to expound the Śrīmālādevī-sūtra; that very night there was a great downpour of rain. Zhi also said, "A basin of water with a knife placed atop it is needed." Shortly after, a torrential rain fell, fully soaking both high and low ground. Mount Qian in Shuzhou was most uniquely secluded, and the foot of the mountain was especially exquisite. Both Lord Zhi and Daoist White Crane wished to have it. In the sixth year of the Tianjian era, both of them petitioned Emperor Wu. Considering that both possessed divine supernormal powers, the Emperor instructed each of them to mark the ground with an object, and whoever marked it first would dwell there. The Daoist said, "I will take the place where my crane alights as my mark." Zhi said, "I will take the place where my ringed staff strikes as my mark." Shortly after, the crane flew off first; as it reached the foot of the mountain and was about to land, it suddenly heard the sound of a staff flying through the air. Lord Zhi's ringed staff then struck the foot of the mountain, and the crane, startled, alighted in another place. The Daoist was displeased, but as his previous words could not be taken back, each built a dwelling at his marked spot. There was a certain Chen Zheng'lu whose entire family served Zhi with great devotion. Zhi once manifested his true form to them, whose radiant marks were like an image of a bodhisattva. Zhi was famous and manifested marvels for more than forty years; the gentlemen and ladies who made offerings and served him were beyond count. However, he was fond of using urine to wash his hair; certain worldly monks secretly mocked and laughed at him. Zhi also knew that many of the monks did not abstain from wine and meat. One who mocked him drank wine and ate pig intestines; Zhi angrily said to him, "You laugh at me for washing my head with urine; why do you eat bags that hold dung?" The mocker was terrified, humbled, and convinced. On the day when Prince Xiaogang of Jin'an was born, Emperor Wu of the Liang sent an envoy to ask Zhi. Zhi joined his palms and said, "The birth of the imperial prince is fortunate indeed; however, his mortal enemy has also been born." Later, upon calculating the calendar and omens, it was discovered that he was born in the same year, month, and day as Hou Jing. At the Linhai Monastery in Kuaiji, there was a senior monk who often heard that Lord Zhi in the capital of Yangzhou spoke frantically and behaved freely and unrestrainedly. The monk said, "This must be the enchantment of a fox spirit. I wish to go to the capital to find hunting hounds to chase it away." Thereupon he boarded a light boat into the sea, headed for Pukou intending to go upriver to the west. Suddenly he was blown by a great gale; he estimated they drifted southeast for six or seven days before reaching an island, where he saw from afar a gilded stūpa towering up into the clouds. He then followed a path and arrived at a monastery whose courtyards were refined and beautiful and whose flowers and plants were fragrant. There were five or six monks, all around thirty years of age, of handsome appearance, all wearing genuine crimson kāṣāyas, leaning on staffs beneath trees at the gate and talking. The monk said, "I was heading for the capital and was tossed about by the wind. I do not know what province or country this is where you venerable sirs dwell. Looking around now, we are surrounded by sea, and I fear I may never see my homeland again." They replied, "If you truly wish to head to Yangzhou, you will arrive instantly. Now we entrust you with a letter to take to the Zhongshan Monastery; go to the second room at the southern end of the western row, find Yellow Head, and give it to him." The monk then closed his eyes and sat in the boat; when the sound of the wind ceased, he opened his eyes, and just as they had said, he had suddenly arrived at the western shore. Entering the inlet for several tens of li, he reached the capital. He went straight to the Zhongshan Monastery to inquire, but there was no one named Yellow Head at all. When the monk explained the details, they reported, "The second room at the southern end of the western row belongs to an eccentric Dao-practitioner with wind illness. Although Lord Zhi is said to be assigned to this monastery, he is always in the lively gathering places of the capital and does not come once in a hundred days; the room is empty and devoid of people." In the midst of their questioning, without anyone noticing, Lord Zhi was already in the monastery kitchen, demanding food while drunk. Because the noon meal had passed and it was late in the day, they did not give him any; he then threw himself about and cursed the monastery monks foully. They tried sending a novice to walk around the side of the kitchen and casually call out, "Yellow Head!" Zhi suddenly said, "Who is calling me?" He immediately chased the novice and came to the monk's place, saying to him, "You promised to bring hunting hounds to catch me; why have you come empty-handed?" The monk knew he was no ordinary man; he made prostrations, repented, and handed over the letter to him. Zhi looked at the letter and said, "The Daoist of the abbot's quarters calls me; before long I shall also return on my own." Zhi then counted on his fingers and said, "I will leave on such-and-such month and day, and will no longer be with you." This monk told the assembly, "Just take note of such-and-such month and day." In the winter of the thirteenth year of the Tianjian era, in the rear hall of the Palace, he said to people, "The Bodhisattva is about to depart." Within ten days, he passed away without illness. His corpse was fragrant and supple, and his expression was serene and joyful. When on the verge of passing, he lit a single candle and handed it to the chamberlain of the rear chamber, Wu Qing. Qing immediately reported it to the throne. Emperor Wu of the Liang sighed, saying, "The Great Master will not stay any longer! Does the candle mean he entrusts the later affairs to me?" He therefore held a lavish funeral, burying him on the Dulong Mound of Mount Zhong. Furthermore, he established Kaishan Monastery at the tomb site, decreed that Lu Chui compose an inscription inside the tomb, and had Wang Yun carve a stele inscription at the monastery gate. The portraits handed down of him are preserved in many places.