法苑珠林 36.139

36.139

晉有支曇籥。本月氏人。寓居建鄴。少出家精苦蔬食。憩吳虎丘山。晉孝武初。勅請出都止建初寺。孝武從受五戒。敬以師禮。籥特稟妙聲善於轉讀。嘗夢天神授其聲法。覺因裁製新聲。梵響清美四飛。却轉反折還弄。雖復東阿先變康會後造。始終巡還。未有如籥之妙。後進傳寫莫匪其法。所製六言梵唄傳響于今。後終於所住。年八十一。

During the Jin dynasty, there was Zhi Tanyue, originally a Yuezhi person who resided in Jianye. Having gone forth from household life at a young age, he practiced austerities and ate only vegetables, resting at Mount Huqiu in Wu. At the beginning of Emperor Xiaowu of Jin's reign, an imperial decree invited him to the capital to reside at Jianchu Temple. Emperor Xiaowu received the five precepts from him and treated him with the respect due to a teacher. Tanyue was exceptionally endowed with a wondrous voice and was skilled in scripture chanting. He once dreamed that a heavenly spirit transmitted vocal methods to him. Upon waking, he devised a new intonation; its Brahmā resonances were clear and beautiful, soaring in all directions, turning back and folding over, returning and playing. Even though Cao Zhi of Dong'e was the first to modulate it and Kang Senghui later created it, in all its circuitous movements, none compared to the wondrous skill of Tanyue. Later students who transmitted and copied it all took his method as their standard. The six-syllable Brahmā pāṭha he composed continues to echo down to the present. Later, he passed away at his dwelling at the age of eighty-one.