廣弘明集 5.11

5.11

Zhi, courtesy name Zijian, was the fourth son of Emperor Wu of Wei. He was initially enfeoffed as King of Dong'e Commandery, and after his death was posthumously titled Prince Si of Chen. From childhood he possessed the virtues of jade tablets; at ten years of age he could compose literature, finishing his work as soon as his brush touched the paper, without ever having to make revisions. In all the arts and skills of the world, he excelled completely. Handan Chun was astonished upon seeing him and respectfully hailed him as a heavenly being. Whenever Zhi read Buddhist sūtras, he would linger over them, admiring and savoring them, regarding them as the ultimate consummation of the supreme Way. He then created the rising and falling, undulating melodies of the seven tones for chanting; hence the recitations of the world have all modeled themselves upon them. Once, while roaming Mount Yushan, he heard the praises of the Brahmā heavens in the sky, which he then transcribed and transmitted to posterity, as fully recorded in the Liang collection *Fayuan ji*. Yet having comprehensively examined the source of the Daoist arts and meticulously investigated the records of immortals, [he found them] exceedingly fraudulent and baseless, and therefore composed a treatise to explain this in detail.