法苑珠林 85.32

85.32

Under the Tang, the monk Famin of Jinglin Temple in Yuezhou had the surname Sun and was a native of Danyang. His lectures on the Lotus Sūtra and the Three Treatises were unceasing. In the first year of Zhenguan, he left and returned to Danyang, where he lectured on the Avataṃsaka and Nirvāṇa scriptures. In the second year, Area Commander Tian of Yuezhou summoned him back to Yiyin Temple; when he lectured, several thousand monastics and laypeople celebrated this joyous gathering. In the nineteenth year, the gentlemen and commoners of Kuaiji invited him to Jinglin to lecture on the Avataṃsaka Sūtra. Towards the end of the sixth month, right as the assembly gathered for the lecture, there was a snake whose upper half hung above Min's crown; it was about seven feet long, golden in colour, and emanated five-coloured light, vanishing only when the lecture concluded. At the end of the summer, he returned to Yiyin Temple. At night, two men in red garments paid homage to Min and said, "The Dharma Master's lectures on the four great scriptures have immeasurable merit. You must go to another realm to teach and transform; thus we have come from the east to welcome the Dharma Master." Several tens of disciples all saw this sign. On the seventeenth day of the eighth month—the preceding three days and three nights having been inexplicably dark and murky—just as he was about to pass away, a great light suddenly shone forth, bright as day in the night. Thereupon he passed away at the age of sixty-seven. When his corpse was kept for seven days, the extraordinary fragrance did not dissipate.