釋門自鏡錄 2.75

2.75

Śramaṇa Shunjing was a native of Lelang Commandery. He was from an aristocratic clan of that realm, a lineage of the Eastern Barbarians, so details are difficult to ascertain. His learning of sacred teachings through successive interpreters seemed to arise from nature. Moreover, regarding the study of Hetuvidyā, which Master Xuanzang thoroughly investigated and transmitted, not many Chinese monks had yet mastered it; that Shunjing could master it—if not through the power of past cultivation, from where could he have reached this? During the Qianfeng era, he accompanied an envoy bringing tribute. At that time, Mahāyāna-Kuiji praised him, saying: “Dharma Master Shunjing of Silla has a fame that shakes Tang and Tibet; his learning encompasses both Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna. In practice he reveres Kāśyapa, strictly observing the dhūtas; in mind he emulates Vakkula, constantly winning renown for having few desires.” Alas! Shunjing wrote rather extensively in his own land, and some of his writings were transmitted to the Central Plains. What he upheld was the definitive teaching of the Faxiang Mahāyāna. Seeing in the Avataṃsaka Sūtra that from the very first arousing of the aspiration one attains Buddhahood, he gave rise to slander and disbelief. Some say that when he was about to die, he ordered his disciples to support him down to the ground. The earth slowly split open, and Shunjing’s body suddenly plunged down. People at the time said he sank alive into hell. Even now, there is a pit over ten feet wide, an actual cavernous hollow, called Shunjing’s Naraka. (Song Biographies of Eminent Monks)