景德傳燈錄 3.22

3.22

The Master also said, "Formerly, the Great Master Huike transmitted the Dharma to me, and afterwards went to the capital of Ye to carry out teachings for thirty years before he finally passed away. Now that I have found you, why should I linger here?" He immediately went to Mount Luofu, wandering leisurely for two years. Returning to his old site, more than a month passed, and the literati and common people rushed to present great offerings of alms. The Master expounded the essentials of the mind extensively for the fourfold assembly, and when finished, he passed away standing with palms joined beneath a great tree at the Dharma assembly. This was the fifteenth day of the tenth month in the second year of the Daye era of Emperor Yang of the Sui, a bingyin year. Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang gave him the posthumous title Zen Master Jianzhi (Reflecting Wisdom) and named his pagoda Jueji (Awakened Quiescence). By the first year of the Jingde era of the August Song, a jiachen year, it was four hundred years. Earlier, Li Chang, the governor of Henan under the Tang, had always looked up to the Patriarch's tradition and deeply grasped the profound purport. In the yiyou year of the Tianbao era, he met Shenhui of Heze and asked, "Where is the Third Patriarch buried? Some say he entered Luofu and did not return; others say he passed away at Shangu. I do not know which is correct." Shenhui said, "Great Master Can returned from Luofu to Shangu, and after more than a month he showed cessation. At present, the Third Patriarch's tomb is visible in Shuzhou." Chang did not yet believe it. Later, Chang was demoted to be vice-prefect of Shuzhou, whereupon he inquired of the monks at Shangu Monastery, saying, "I hear that behind the monastery is the Third Patriarch's tomb; is this so?" At that time, Sthavira Huiguan replied, "It is here." Chang joyfully went together with his subordinates to pay homage. They also opened the vault, took the true image, and cremated it, obtaining three hundred grains of five-colored śarīra. With one hundred grains, he spent his own stipend to erect a pagoda; one hundred grains were sent to Shenhui of Heze to verify his former words; and one hundred grains he kept with him. Later, at his private residence in Luoyang, he held a vegetarian banquet to celebrate it. At that time, the Tripiṭaka Master Jianna and others from the Western Regions were in the assembly. Chang asked the Tripiṭaka Master, "How many ancestral masters of the Zen gate are there in India?" Jianna replied, "From Kāśyapa to Prajñātāra, there are twenty-seven patriarchs. If we account for the collateral branch from Venerable Simha down through Bodhidharma for four generations, there are twenty-two people, making a total of forty-nine patriarchs. If counting from the seven Buddhas down to this Master Sengcan, not including lateral branches, there are thirty-seven generations in all." Chang also asked the senior virtuous ones in the assembly, "I have seen ancestral charts that cite more than fifty patriarchs, with divergent branch lineages, undetermined clans, or those with only empty names. By what can this be verified?" At that time, there was Zen Master Zhiben, a disciple of the Sixth Patriarch, who replied, "This was because at the beginning of the Later Wei, when the Buddhist Dharma was declining, the śramaṇa Tanyao, amid the confusion, made a simple record on plain silk of the names of the patriarchs, occasionally losing their proper order, and hid it in the collar of his robe, concealing himself in a rock cave. After thirty-five years, when Emperor Wencheng ascended the throne, the Dharma gate flourished again. Tanyao's reputation and practice were both esteemed, and he became the Controller of Monks. He then assembled various śramaṇas to deliberate anew and compile a catalogue called the Fu fazang zhuan (Account of the Transmission of the Dharma Treasury). That there are minor discrepancies within it was due to Tanyao's fear when he transcribed it. After another thirteen years, the Emperor ordered Huang Yuanzhen, Erudite of the National University, together with the North Indian Tripiṭaka Masters Buddhasānta and Jifuyan and others, to reinvestigate the Sanskrit texts, distinguish the central tenets, and arrange the ancestral successions in order, so that there would be no errors."