[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Indian literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in) › [Buddhist Literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha) › [Taishō Tripiṭaka (Chinese Buddhist canon)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho) › [傳法正宗記](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2078) › 6.30 # 傳法正宗記 6.30 傳法正宗記 6.30 - **Language:** Classical Chinese ### [6.30](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2078.6.30) 又曰。吾往七十年。有二菩薩之人自東方來。其一出家。其一在家。共隆教化。治我伽藍。扶我宗旨。已而即往新州。尋於國恩寺沐浴訖安坐而化。異香酷烈。白虹屬地。其時實先天二年癸丑八月之二日也。當是新韶二郡各務建塔。爭迎其真體。久不能決。刺史乃與二郡之人焚香祝之曰。香煙所向。即得舉去。俄而香煙倏發北趣韶境。韶人乃得以十一月十三日歸塔於曹侯溪之濱。今南華寺是也。其世壽七十有六。前刺史韋據碑之。始尊者入塔時。徒屬思其言將有人取吾首者。遂以鐵鍱固護其項。開元十年八月三日。其夕之半。俄聞塔間有若拽鐵索之聲。主塔者驚起。遽見一人狀類孝子（此當日見一人著縗絰而混。言類孝子者。蓋順乎祖師隱語之意耳）自塔馳出。尋視之其鐵鍱護處已有痕迹。遂以賊事聞其州邑。官嚴捕之。他日於邑之石角村果得其賊。史鞫問。賊自稱姓張名淨滿。本汝州梁縣人。適於洪州開元寺。受新羅國僧金大悲者。雇令取祖之首。歸其國以事之。吏欲以法坐之。刺史以其情不惡。乃問尊者弟子令瑫禪師。令瑫復以佛法論。欲吏原之。刺史善瑫之意亦從而恕之。當其時州刺史曰柳無忝。縣令曰楊侃。賊曰張淨滿驗其讖語無少差謬。上元中肅宗慕尊者之道。嘗詔取其所傳衣鉢。就內瞻禮。肅宗崩代宗嗣位。永泰元年五月之五日。遂夢尊者請還其衣鉢。天子益敬其法。七日即詔使臣持還曹溪。憲宗錫諡曰大鑒禪師。塔曰元和靈照。初大鑒示為負薪之役。混一凡輩。自謂不識文字。及其以道稍顯。雖三藏教文俗間書傳。引於言論。一一若素練習。發演聖道解釋經義。其無礙大辯灝若江海。人不能得其涯涘。昔唐相始興公張九齡方為童。其家人携拜大鑒。大鑒撫其頂曰。此奇童也。必為國器。其先知遠見皆若此類。孰謂其不識世俗文字乎。識者曰。此非不識文字也。示不識耳。正以其道非世俗文字語言之所及。蓋有所表也。然正法東傳。自大鑒益廣。承之者皆卓犖大士散布四海。其道德利人。人至于今賴之。詳此豈真樵者而初學道乎。是乃聖人降迹示出於微者也。其等覺乎妙覺耶。不可得而必知。 > He also said, "Seventy years after my passing, two bodhisattvas will come from the east: one a renunciant and one a householder. Together they will flourish the teaching and transformation, manage my saṅghārāma, and uphold my essential teachings." Shortly after, he went to Xinzhou. Soon after, having bathed at Gu'en Monastery, he sat peacefully and transformed. An extraordinary fragrance filled the air, and a white rainbow connected to the ground. That time was in fact the second day of the eighth month in the second year of Xiantian (gui-chou) \[713 CE\]. At that time, the two prefectures of Xinzhou and Shaozhou each strove to build a stupa and contested over welcoming his true body, unable to decide for a long time. The prefectural governor, together with the people of both prefectures, burnt incense and prayed, saying, "Whichever direction the smoke of the incense points, there he may be conveyed." Presently, the incense smoke abruptly arose and drifted north toward the boundary of Shaozhou. The people of Shaozhou were thus able, on the thirteenth day of the eleventh month, to enshrine him in a stupa on the shore of Caohou Creek; this is the present Nanhua Monastery. His worldly age was seventy-six. The former prefectural governor Wei Ju wrote his stele. Earlier, when the Venerable entered the stupa, his disciples remembered his prediction that someone would come to take his head; they consequently used iron plates to securely protect his neck. In the tenth year of Kaiyuan, on the night of the third day of the eighth month, around midnight, a sound like the dragging of iron chains was suddenly heard from the stupa. The stupa-keeper was startled awake and suddenly saw a person resembling a mourning son (at that time someone was seen wearing mourning clothes and mingling among them; saying he resembled a mourning son merely accords with the hidden meaning of the patriarchal master's cryptic words) rushing out from the stupa. Upon checking immediately, traces were already found on the iron-plate protection. They subsequently reported the burglary to the prefecture and county, and officials conducted a strict search. Later, in Shijiao Village of that county, they indeed captured the thief. The officials interrogated him: the thief called himself Zhang Jingman, originally from Liang County of Ruzhou. He had just been at Kaiyuan Monastery in Hongzhou, where he had been hired by a monk from Silla named Jin Dabi to take the patriarch's head and return to his country to venerate it. The officials wished to convict him according to the law, but the prefectural governor, seeing that his intention was not malicious, questioned the Venerable's disciple, Chan Master Lingtao. Lingtao, evaluating it from the standpoint of the Buddha-Dharma, wished the officials to pardon him. The prefectural governor considered Tao's intention noble and accordingly showed him clemency. At that time, the prefectural governor was Liu Wutian, the county magistrate was Yang Kan, and the thief was Zhang Jingman—proving that his prophetic words were fulfilled without the slightest error. During the Shangyuan era, Emperor Suzong, admiring the Venerable's Way, once decreed that the transmitted robe and bowl be brought to the inner palace to be venerated. When Suzong passed away and Daizong ascended the throne, on the fifth day of the fifth month in the first year of Yongtai, \[the emperor\] dreamed that the Venerable requested the return of his robe and bowl. The Son of Heaven respected his Dharma all the more, and on the seventh day he dispatched an imperial envoy to convey them back to Caoxi. Emperor Xianzong bestowed the posthumous title "Chan Master Dajian" and named the stupa "Yuanhe Lingzhao". Initially, Dajian manifested as a wood-gatherer, mingling with ordinary people and claiming not to know letters. But when he gradually became renowned for the Way, whether it was the scriptures of the Tripiṭaka or mundane books and chronicles, he cited them in his discourses, every one as though he had long practiced them. Expounding the sacred path and explaining the meaning of the sūtras, his unhindered great eloquence was as vast as rivers and oceans, such that no one could fathom its shores. Formerly, when Zhang Jiuling, the Duke of Shixing and prime minister of the Tang, was still a boy, his family brought him to pay homage to Dajian. Dajian stroked his head and said, "This is an extraordinary boy; he will surely become an instrument of state." His foreknowledge and foresight were all of this kind. Who could say he did not know mundane letters? Those with understanding say, "This was not truly an inability to know letters, but a manifestation of not knowing them." Because his Way is not something reached by mundane letters and language, it was meant to symbolize something. Furthermore, the eastward transmission of the true Dharma became all the broader from Dajian onward. Those who succeeded him were all outstanding great beings dispersed across the four seas. Their virtue and Dharma have benefited others, and people rely upon them to this day. Considering this, could he truly have been a mere woodcutter who only then began studying the Way? He was indeed a sage who descended his traces, demonstrating his emergence from humble origins. Was he at the stage of Equal Enlightenment or Wondrous Enlightenment? It cannot be definitively known. > — English (machine translation) (machine translation) - [Previous: 6.29](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2078.6.29) - [Next: 6.31](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2078.6.31) - [Up: 6](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2078.6) ## Translations (1) - [English (machine translation)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2078~en-mt.6.30) — English, machine translation --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2078.6.30](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2078.6.30) · Pramāṇa