北山錄 3.4.3

3.4.3

Thereupon he ceased eating meat, halted the tethering of birds and beasts, and forbade shark-meat, butchers, and the pungent roots from entering the markets. (The Records of the Jin and Qi state that when Gao Yang campaigned against the Khitans, he first bared his head and exposed his body; over a thousand li he only ate meat and drank water, his vigorous spirits growing ever fiercer. After becoming ruler, he exposed his naked form, applied white powder and painted his eyebrows with black pigment, and rode camels, oxen, and horses without saddling or bridling them. Men and women were brought together in chaotic gatherings; he watched licentious acts in person without any sense of decorum. He dismembered women, using their thighbones as pipa lutes; cut open people's bellies with his own hands; climbed onto house beams and ran as swiftly as if on the ground; his slaughters could not be numbered. Viewed in this light, calling him a rākṣasa is not mistaken.) Earlier, when the Emperor was in Jinyang, he ordered someone to ride a camel to a monastery to fetch scriptural cases. The messenger asked where it was. Yang said: "Allow the camel to go out of the city." When he went out, all at once as in a dream he arrived at a mountain. Halfway up the mountain was a Buddhist monastery. A crowd of novices called from afar: "Gao Yang's camel has arrived!" They led him to an audience with an old monk. The monk said: "How is Yang doing as the Son of Heaven?" He replied: "He is sagely and brilliant." [The monk] asked: "Why have you come?" He replied: "To fetch scriptural cases." The monk said: "When Yang was in the monastery, he was lazy about reading the scriptures. Right now, go north and take the eastern end; that is where they are." Later, the Emperor arrived at the Mujing Monastery at Gukou. At that time, there was an idiot who had abandoned worldly ties, who had previously been unable to speak. Suddenly he said to the Emperor: "I shall depart; you come later." That night the idiot died; the Emperor likewise soon died in Jinyang. (There was a daoshi of Mount Tai whom the Emperor asked: "How many years will I be the Son of Heaven?" He answered: "Thirty years." The Emperor said: "Ten years, ten months, and ten days—could that not be thirty?" When the appointed time arrived, he indeed died.) The Emperor's folly and wisdom could not be fathomed. He entrusted governance to Yang Zunyan, while vastly erecting monasteries and dwellings; throughout the entire day, he would sit in dhyāna, bow to the Buddha, and perform circumambulations as swiftly as the wind. In my humble opinion, Gao Yang personally fulfilled the black prophecy. (Previously, a prophecy said that one in black garments would become the Son of Heaven. The master of dhyāna Yidao, who is now the Ven. Beishan, took the sound of the character "Gao Yang" 高洋 to be identical to "lamb" 羔羊, which is black.) Before this, after the Zhengguang era of the Wei, (Previously, Empress Dowager Hu oversaw the court. King Yi of Qinghe marshaled soldiers to decide affairs in the hall, and the era name was changed to the first year of Zhengguang. Each person entering the market was taxed one coin.) there were many anxieties within the empire; the king's corvée duties were exhausting and burdensome. Households everywhere joined together to enter the monastic order. Irregularity and abuse piled up ever more: in rough count, monasteries numbered over thirty thousand, and monks and nuns exceeded two million. By the time Emperor Wu of the Zhou overcame the Qi—the Qi having succeeded the Wei—the monasteries numbered over four thousand, and the monastic community was reduced by three million. Wei Yuansong perhaps thought that the Buddhadharma was held in low esteem, and taking as a pretext a cruel and calamity-invoking lord, he used slanders to effect its destruction, so that upon being destroyed it might rise again, according with the principle of renewing the whole world. (Yuansong, a native of Xinfan County in Shu, left home at Black Water on Mount Emei. He submitted twenty policy proposals to purge immoral, wealthy monks and to establish a great Yanping Monastery to house the sick and feeble from the four seas; his reasoning was entirely apt. When Emperor Taizong of the Tang visited the netherworld, he saw him in hell; [Yuansong] said of himself that being there was like the joy of the third dhyāna.) Thus the biography by Tang Lin says that this man is not in the three realms. The scripture says: "Appearing to the assembly as having the three poisons, / and also exhibiting the signs of heterodox views" (the Lotus Sūtra). Is he not of that kind? However, when an ultimate person exercises expedient means, once the task is accomplished, he reveals the expedient. If he leaves it hidden to the end without revealing it, then cunning people will imitate the expedient and harm the real. As for Yuansong, he had not fully exhausted the art of expedients. Cup Pass of the Song was an exiled immortal across the sea; he concealed his surname and personal name. Because people at the time saw him crossing by riding a cup, they named him after the deed. He was also called Du Lian. (Some places called him Du Lian.) In ancient times, monks were called daoshi, alian, or ashang (and these three names existed). Once, he lodged in an inn; at dawn, (early morning,) he stole a golden icon and left. The host pursued him on galloping steeds; [Du] walked slowly, yet could not be overtaken. (The galloping horses could not catch up.) Arriving at Mengjin, he floated his cup across the Yellow River (Mengjin is the Yellow River) and reached the capital. His clothing was tattered and vile; his eating, drinking, joy, and anger were all without moderation. He carried a reed basket (a basket of bamboo, like a small cage, made entirely of reeds), and in the basket he placed a wooden cup. Once, wishing to go to Guabu (Guabu is a place between the Yangzi and Huai rivers; formerly Sun Zhong planted melons there; it is above the Yangzi River), the ferryman would not row the boat for him. Thereupon, he stepped with both feet into his cup; casting glances around and chanting poems, he crossed straight to the north bank. Once, in a village dwelling in Guangling (Jinling), he encountered an eight-precepts retreat gathering. He placed his basket in the courtyard; when members of the family went to move it, its weight was so great that none could lift it. Once, someone who peered inside saw four small boys dwelling there. At first, he feigned death under the northern cliffs of Guangling; lotuses surrounded his body, growing out of the rocks. After his burial, someone saw him in Pengcheng (Xuzhou); opening the coffin to look, only his boots and sandals remained. (Monks wearing short-legged boots call them faluo.) When Zhu Xuqi (a man of the Song) returned from an embassy to Goguryeo, he lost his way onto an islet and found Du's bowl. Once he arrived, Du said: "I have not seen this bowl for four thousand years." (Du saw the bowl and recognized it.) Baozhi of the Liang ate and drank in violation of the rules; his hair was several inches long. He held a tin staff hung with scissors, a mirror, and two or three bolts of silk. Emperor Wu of the Qi considered him to be feigning madness to mislead the populace, (Emperor Wu of Southern Qi, whose surname was Xiao, personal name Ze, and courtesy name Xuanyuan, was the son of Daocheng. He died after eleven years on the throne. His testament decreed that animal sacrifices should not be offered at his spirit-tablet, only cakes and rice; and he forbade people to leave home to enter the clergy or to erect stūpas, monasteries, and private homes as shrines.) and imprisoned him in Jiankang. Yet Zhi divided his form and roamed through the markets. Once, he approached someone begging for minced fish; after eating his fill, he left. The host looked into the basin, and the fish was alive as before. (Master Zhi once ate minced fish in front of Emperor Wu of the Liang; Emperor Wu viewed it with disapproval and suspicion. Master Zhi thereupon promptly spat into the water, and all saw that the fish was as before, only its tail was slightly damaged. To this day in Jiangling there are 'minced-remnant fish'.) Emperor Wu used harsh punishments; Zhi, borrowing his spiritual power, caused him to see Emperor Gao suffering extreme torment underground (Emperor Gao was Xiao Daocheng), and because of this, [Emperor Wu] abolished the harm caused by awls and knives. In the early Liang, his traces were exceedingly abundant. There was General Chen Zhenglu, who served Zhi with his whole household; Zhi manifested his true form for him, his radiant marks like those of a bodhisattva's image. Some take Guanyin to be Zhi, and nowadays statues are sometimes erected of him (that is, the present Eleven-Faced Guanyin). Indeed, the Great Beings of the Ten Abodes!