法苑珠林 28.25

28.25

The Śramaṇa Shi Shixing of the Jin dynasty was a native of Yingchuan, of the Zhu clan. His disposition and aspirations were broad and farsighted; his discernment was profound and upright. Following his true heart, he went straight forward; honor and disgrace could not move him. At that time, the scriptures were not yet complete; there was only the Small Chapter, and its sections and phrases were deficient and abbreviated, so that the underlying doctrinal principles were not manifest. In the fifth year of the Ganlu era of the Wei dynasty, he set out from Yongzhou and went west to Khotan, searching for the treasury of scriptures and traveling across many kingdoms. Monastic disciples in the Western Regions mostly studied the Hīnayāna. Hearing that Shixing sought various Vaipulya sūtras, they were all astonished and suspicious, refusing to give them to him, saying, "People of the border regions do not understand the Saddharma; it will lead to much confusion and disorder." Shixing said, "The sūtras say that after a thousand years, when the Semblance Dharma is about to decline, it shall flow eastward. If you suspect that these are not the Buddha's words, I ask to test them with utmost sincerity." Thereupon, firewood was burned and oil poured on; smoke and flames were just flaring up. Shixing held up the sūtra, his tears flowing, and knocked his head on the ground, making a vow: "If this indeed emerged from the Golden Mouth and ought to be proclaimed in the land of Han, may all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas bear witness to it!" Thereupon, he cast the sūtra into the fire. The flames leaped and raged for quite some time, and after that, the whole heap had turned to ashes, yet the text was undamaged, the leather leaves just as before. The whole kingdom rejoiced in veneration, and kept him to make offerings to him. He dispatched his disciple Farao to carry the Sanskrit texts back to Chenliu, where they were produced at Cangyuan and other temples in Junyi, in total ninety chapters and two hundred thousand words. The upāsaka Zhu Shulan of Henan, who was well versed in regional customs and deeply proficient in the flavor of the Dharma, personally joined in translating them. This is the present first chapter of the Fangguang [banruo jing]. Shixing died at the age of eighty. When cremated according to the jhapita rites, after the fire was extinguished for an entire day, his corpse remained completely intact. The people of the kingdom were amazed and all said, "If he truly attained the Way, according to the rule, the body should disintegrate." At these words, it shattered into pieces. They then gathered his bones and erected a stūpa. The master of the Daoist Huizhi transmitted this, and Master Daoan also recorded the matter in detail.