神僧傳 6.36

6.36

Shi Kuiji, styled Hongdao, was of the Yuchi clan and a native of Chang'an in Jingzhao. Earlier, before Kuiji was born, his mother, Lady Pei, dreamt that she held the moon's disc in her palm and swallowed it; when she awoke, she was pregnant. When the full term was completed [and he was born], he was unlike ordinary children. When he was just a few years old and reciting texts in his studies, his divine comprehension was sharp and lucid. At the age of seventeen, he joined the monastic ranks. When he entered the Dharma, an imperial decree appointed him a disciple of Xuanzang. He first resided at Guangfu Monastery. Soon, an imperial decree ordered the selection of those of outstanding intelligence to enter Dacien Monastery to personally attend upon Master Xuanzang and study the various Buddha-dharmas. Later, he traveled to Mount Wutai and climbed the Taihang mountains. Reaching an ancient Buddhist temple in Xihe, he stayed the night. He dreamt that he was halfway up a mountain below a cliff, where immeasurable people were crying out in suffering. In the darkness, he could not bear to listen. Walking on foot, he ascended those tiered peaks, which were entirely of the color of lapis lazuli; he could see all lands, and looking up, saw a city. Within the city a voice said, 'Halt! Halt! Kuiji is not yet meant to arrive here.' In a moment, two heavenly youths came out from the city and asked, 'Do you see the sinful and suffering sentient beings below the mountain?' He replied, 'I hear their cries but do not see their forms.' The youths then threw a sword to him, saying, 'Cut open your abdomen, and you will see.' Kuiji cut himself open; when his belly opened, two beams of light shone down upon the foot of the mountain, and he saw countless people undergoing suffering. Then the youths entered the city, brought out two scrolls of paper and a brush, threw them to him, and left. Kuiji was extremely astonished. The next day, he found the Mile shangsheng jing (Sūtra on Maitreya's Ascent) in the monastery, and considered it a manifestation of Maitreya. Wishing to comment upon and expound it, he took up the brush and dictated; sarīra fell in clusters from the tip of his brush. He once commissioned a jade image of Mañjuśrī and transcribed the Great Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra in gold, both receiving auspicious signs. Previously, Vinaya Master Daoxuan, through propagating the Vinaya, had moved the heavenly kitchens to offer him food; he always looked down on Kuiji's habit of traveling with three carts and did not treat him with much courtesy. Kuiji once visited Daoxuan. That day, midday passed, yet the heavenly food did not arrive. Only after Kuiji took his leave and departed did the heavenly gods descend. Daoxuan rebuked them for being late. The heavenly gods said, 'Just now we saw a Mahāyāna bodhisattva here, with an escort so strict and solemn that we had no way to enter.' Daoxuan was greatly astonished to hear this, and thereupon respect for Kuiji grew both near and far. Prior to this, Master Xuanzang had personally sought out Śīlabhadra's Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra and the Vijñaptimātratā school in the Western Regions, and the Master grasped all of their subtleties. The world calls this the Ci'en teaching. On the thirteenth day of the eleventh month in the first year of the Yongchun era, he died in the Translation Courtyard of Ci'en Monastery at the age of fifty-one.