弘贊法華傳 8.18

8.18

Śramaṇa Sengche's origins are unknown. He lived at Xianquan Monastery on Mount Nangu in Jiangzhou. Once while traveling, he encountered a leper. Che led him into the mountains, dug a cave for him, supplied him with food, and had him recite the Lotus Sūtra. The leper was illiterate and, moreover, obstinate and crude, yet Che taught him sentence by sentence without ever tiring. When he had recited nearly half the scripture, he dreamed of someone instructing him, and thereafter he grew somewhat sharper, mastering five or six fascicles, while his sores gradually showed signs of healing. Once the entire work was completed, his eyebrows and hair were fully restored and his skin color returned to normal. Thus the scripture says that it is an "excellent medicine for illnesses"—this is truly verified.