法華傳記 3.10

3.10

Shi Dacheng Ji was the foremost disciple who studied the Tripiṭaka comprehensively. Among three thousand disciples, seventy attained mastery, and four were chiefs, among whom he was supreme in every respect. His mother dreamt of a golden man holding a ruyi scepter in his hand, saying, "I wish to lodge in your womb"; having spoken, he entered her mouth, and she conceived. When he was born, purple clouds covered him above like a canopy. At the age of nine he left home, and at seventeen he joined the monastic community. By special imperial decree, he assisted the Tripiṭaka Master Xuanzang as an attendant at the court translation bureau, often serving as the recorder for translations of sūtras and treatises. Consequently, he commented on one hundred sūtras and treatises; the new texts from Yuhua were widely promoted throughout the Eastern Xia, and the Faxiang Mahāyāna once again illuminated the realm of sand-like worlds—this was truly due to Master Ji's effort. When he wrote commentaries on the sūtras and treatises in the dark night, his teeth emitted light. On his journey of preaching, he reached Boling, where monastics and laypeople made an earnest plea for him to expound the scripture of the Lotus. Thereupon he composed a new commentary, drafting by night and preaching by day; wondrous portents frequently manifested. Someone dreamt of an adorned and pure Buddha-land, filled with Buddhas who came to speak to the Dharma Master; this was when he composed the commentary on the Apparition of the Jeweled Stūpa chapter. When the lectures ended and the commentary was finished, he composed a verse, saying: