華嚴經傳記 3.5

3.5

Shi Famin, whose secular surname was Sun, was a native of Danyang. At the age of eight he left home and served Chan Master Ying as a disciple. He entered Mount Mao to listen to Dharma Master Ming on the Three Treatises, and also listened to Shi of Goguryeo lecture on Mahāyāna sūtras and treatises. Personally serving as the southern-seat challenger, he carried on debates for three cycles. In the first year of Zhenguan, he returned to Danyang and lectured on the Avataṃsaka and Nirvāṇa. In the second year, Area Commander Tian of Yuezhou summoned him back to Yiyinsi to continue turning the wheel of Dharma. At that time, more than eight hundred śramaṇas studying doctrinal principles from all four directions, twelve hundred local monks, three hundred nuns, and an uncountable number of gentry and laypeople gathered; it was celebrated as a joyful assembly of Dharma rejoicing. In the nineteenth year, the gentry and laypeople of Kuaiji invited him to reside at Jinglinsi to lecture on the Avataṃsaka Sūtra. Towards the end of the sixth month, during the lectures, there was a snake with half its body suspended above Famin's crown, about seven feet long, golden in color, emitting five-colored light; only when the lecture ended did it disappear. When the summer retreat concluded, he returned to Yiyinsi. At night, two men in red robes bowed to Famin and said: 'Dharma Master, you lecture on the four great scriptures, and your merit is immeasurable. You must go to other realms to teach and transform; thus we have come from the east to welcome the Dharma Master.' Several tens of disciples saw this together. On the seventeenth day of the eighth month, he passed away. For three days and three nights prior to that, it had become inexplicably pitch dark; just as he was about to pass away, a great light suddenly shone forth, bright as day through the night, and a wondrous fragrance did not fade. None failed to marvel and sigh in admiration. Monastics and laypeople in formal procession escorted him to the mountains of Long'an. He authored a seven-fascicle commentary on the Avataṃsaka.