法苑珠林 61.14

61.14

At Mount Qihou in Shu of the Song period there was the śramaṇa Xuanchang, surnamed Zhao, a man of Jincheng in Hexi. When he was young, his family was wiped out by the Hu barbarians. Disaster was about to overtake Chang when a barbarian general saw Chang and halted, saying, "This boy's gaze radiates outward; he is no ordinary child." He thus obtained escape, and thereupon went to Liangzhou to renounce worldly life. Later, the barbarian tyrant suppressed and eradicated the Buddha-Dharma and harmed many śramaṇas; only Chang was able to flee. On the seventeenth day of the intercalary fifth month in the twenty-second year of the Yuanjia reign era, he set out from Pingcheng, taking the route through the Dai commandery and Shanggu, striding east across the Taihang Mountains, passing through Youzhou and Jizhou, and turning south as he was about to reach Mengjin. He held only a bundle of willow branches and a fistful of scallion leaves in his hands. When the barbarian cavalry in hot pursuit were about to overtake him, he struck the sand with the willow branches; the sand flew up, darkening the sky, so that men and horses could not advance. After a short while the sand settled, and the cavalry reached him again. He thereupon cast himself into the river, inserting only the scallion leaves into his nostrils to breathe and cross the water. On the first day of the eighth month he arrived in Yangzhou. He had a penetrating understanding of the sūtras and vinaya and deeply penetrated the essentials of meditation; his prognostications of fortune and misfortune never failed to be verified. Emperor Wen of the Song deeply admired and esteemed him, inviting him to be the tutor to the Crown Prince. Later he moved to rest in Jingzhou, residing at Changsha Temple. Stretching out his hand, incense came forth; water flowed from within his palm, which none could fathom. Reaching the final years of the Song, he took a swift boat on a distant journey, heading west to Chengdu. At first he resided at Dashi Temple, where he painted by his own hand sixteen divine images, including Guhyapada-vajra. In the third year of the Shengming reign era, he traveled to the western border to view the Min range; within the borders of Guangyang County in the northern part of Minshan Commandery, he saw Mount Qihou, and thereupon formed the aspiration to spend the rest of his days there. Relying on the crags and bordering the ravine, he wove grass to make a hermitage. His disciple Faqi saw a divine being riding a horse and wearing a plain blue unlined robe circle the mountain once, who returned to point out the place to build a stūpa. On the twenty-third day of the fourth month in the first year of the Jianyuan reign era of the Qi dynasty, he erected the pillar and established a temple, naming it Qixing. This was precisely the morning when the Great Ancestor of the Qi received the imperial bestowal; the heavenly season and human affairs coincided across ten thousand li. At that time, Fu Yan was garrisoned in the west at Chengdu; admiring Chang's conduct and demeanor, he treated him with the respect due to a teacher. After Chang established the temple, he sent a letter to Yan, which read: