華嚴經傳記 1.45

1.45

Treatise on the Avataṃsaka in One Hundred Fascicles. Composed by the śramaṇa Shi Lingbian of the Later Wei. The Dharma Master was a native of Jinyang in Taiyuan. Having planted wondrous causes in past lives and long cultivated supreme goodness, he entered the Path in his youth and rose above the mundane as an adult. He constantly read Mahāyāna sūtras and set his mind on the bodhisattva practice. When he encountered the Avataṃsaka, he savored it with special devotion. Thereupon, carrying this sūtra upon his head, he entered Qingliang Temple on Mount Qingliang to implore the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī's compassionate protection and embrace, hoping for an opening of understanding into the meanings of this sūtra. Carrying it on his head and circumambulating the path, a full year elapsed: his feet broke open with blood flowing, and his flesh was worn away until bone was exposed. Moving forward on his knees with earnest exertion, he vowed and hoped for unseen divine response. Eventually, he heard a person say to him, "Cease your circumambulation, and contemplate this sūtra." Thereupon, opening the scrolls, he experienced a great and sudden awakening. In the first year of the Xiping era of the Later Wei (year Daliang), in the first month, he set his brush to work at Qingliang Temple, reverently composing the Treatise on the Avataṃsaka, expounding the meanings and explaining the text to exhaust its subtleties and penetrate its depths. In the second year, he initially moved to reside at Songyan Temple on Mount Xuandui, annotating as before. At that time, Empress Dowager Ling (née Hu) of Emperor Xiaoming honored the Path and admired the man, issuing a decree requesting him to come to the imperial palace. The Dharma Master declined on grounds of illness and had not yet met her. At the start of summer, she renewed the command with firm insistence; unable to decline and avoid it, on the sixteenth day he entered the Eastern Cypress Hall, and soon moved to the Shiqian Hall, later residing in the Huiyin Hall, drafting the commentary without interruption. In the summer of the first year of the Shenggui era, an imperial decree stated: "The great Dharma is vast and broad; its propagation awaits the right person. Currently, Dharma Master Lingbian, compiling the treatise in the Huiyin Hall, is of profound, refined virtue and vessel, and has long spread a noble reputation. Let him be invited to proceed to the Xuanguang Hall to lecture on the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra." Thereupon the fourfold assembly rejoiced together, and the ten directions celebrated. When the lectures concluded, an imperial edict instructed the Grand Tutor and Palace Attendant, Prince Yunyi of Qinghe, to accommodate the Dharma Master in the upper story of the Shiqian Hall, where he continued compiling the treatise as before. In the summer he lectured on the Avataṃsaka, and in the winter on the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā. The Dharma Master and his disciple Lingyuan seized the moments to compile and compose, forgetting sleep and food. In the ninth month of autumn in the third year of the Shenggui era, the work was finally completed. Abbreviating the sūtra and expanding into commentary, it totaled one hundred fascicles, spanning five years from beginning to end and forming ten cases. Later, the times met with multiple upheavals, and the voice of the Dharma paused midway. The Dharma Master ceased lecturing to preserve the truth, avoiding the troubles of the time to nourish the Path. On the eighth day of the first month in the third year of the Zhengguang era, at Rongjue Temple, his spirit departed in passing. He was then forty-six years of age. Thereupon Emperor Xiaoming issued an edict: "This treatise was composed by a bodhisattva of this land. It shall be consigned to all Tripitaka repositories, entered into the catalogues, and distributed for circulation." His disciples Daochang, Lingyuan, Tanxian, and others, lamenting their late master's early passing and aching that the spiritual records might be obscured, together with pure and faithful gentlemen, reverently copied clean manuscripts to circulate among both monastics and laity. Although this treatise was widely circulated in Fen and Jin, it had not reached the capitals of Chang'an and Luoyang. Eminent scholars of Chang'an were constantly longing for it. In the second year of the Yongchun era, there were the śramaṇa Shi Tongxian of Zhixiangsi and the layman Xuan Shuang of the Fang Xuande Temple, who both specialized in this sūtra and attentively praised it. They formed a shared aspiration to travel together to Mount Qingliang to pray to and worship the holy one Mañjuśrī. Passing through Tongzi Temple in Bingzhou, they saw this treatise manuscript, and after earnest and persistent requests, it was finally transmitted to them. Carrying it back to the capital, the elite scholars around the emperor's carriage were all astonished and delighted, whereupon they transcribed and circulated it.