大宋僧史略 1.28

1.28

According to Dharma Master Lingyu's Sigao, there are ten names for monasteries: first, si (its meaning follows the Shiming); second, 'pure dwelling' (the defiled cannot live together); third, 'common abode of the Dharma' (the boundary where both Dharma and food are shared); fourth, 'world-transcending abode' (a place for cultivating departure from the secular); fifth, vihāra ('refined abode', not a place for the coarse and violent to dwell); sixth, 'pure park' (a place where the three karmas are unstained); seventh, 'vajra-kṣetra' (a steadfast land where men of the Way dwell); eighth, 'bodhimaṇḍa of quiescent cessation' (in the Jetavana there is the Padmagarbha world adorned with the seven jewels, called the bodhimaṇḍa of quiescent cessation, where Vairocana Buddha preached the Avataṃsaka); ninth, 'place of distant separation' (those who enter it are far from afflictions and close to the bliss of quiescent cessation); tenth, 'place of drawing near' (as in practicing peaceful and joyful practices, because within this one draws near to the Dharma). These ten names in this land follow the Zhihuan tujing; each explanation of their characteristics has its own significance, as in that Sigao. Today's usage has six kinds: first, 'cave' (ku), as when the Northern Wei chiseled mountains into caves to install sacred statues and house monks (now in the Tianzhu Monastery at Longmen in Luoyang there are stone caves, such as the Nārāyaṇa-vajra Buddha cave, which are examples); second, 'cloister' (yuan) (now largely used by abbots of the Chan school); third, 'grove' (lin) (the Vinaya says 'dwell in one grove', and in the sūtras there is the Jetavana); fourth, 'temple' (miao) (such as the Gautama Temple in the Samantapāsādikā); fifth, araṇya (those without the form of an enclosed cloister); sixth, 'common hall' (putong) (today there are many on Mount Wutai). Furthermore, according to records, when Emperor Ming of the Han died, a Jetavana was erected atop his mausoleum; from then on, the tombs and mounds of the common people sometimes had stūpas built upon them (this appears in Yang Xuanzhi's Luoyang qielan ji). From the Yongping era of the Han to the Yongjia era of the Jin, Luoyang had only forty-two monasteries. But when the Northern Wei made Luoyang its capital, they deeply believed in Buddhism; magnificent buildings succeeded one another, and ministers and wealthy citizens competed to establish monasteries, totaling over a thousand. When the Later Zhao had its capital at Ye, it built more than eight hundred monasteries, the remains of which still survive today.