Damsi曇始
1Damsi of the white feet — he lives through Tuoba Tao's breaking of the Law and turns him back
釋曇始．關中人也。自出家多有異跡。足白於面。雖涉泥水。未甞沾濕。天下咸稱白足和尚。以晉大元末年賚持經律數十部。往化遼東。乘機宣化。顯授三乘。立以歸戒。梁僧傳以此為高句麗開法之始。時當開土王五年．新羅奈勿王四十一年．百濟阿莘王五年。而秦符堅送經像後二十五年也。是後四年。法顯西入天竺。又二年羅什生來。玄高法師生焉。晉義熙初。師復還關中。唱道三輔。長安人王胡之叔父某死已數年矣。一日夢中忽來現形。接引王胡。遊遍地獄。示諸果報。胡辭還釋。謂胡曰。既已知其因果。要當奉事白足阿練用修白業。胡敬諾寤已。遍詢眾僧。惟見始足白曰面。因即事之。晉末匃奴赫連勃勃襲取關中。斬戮無數。師亦遇害。刀不能傷。普赦沙門。悉皆不殺。而潛遁山中。修頭陀密行。未幾拓跋燾復剋長安。擅威關洛。時，傳陵崔浩少習左道。猜疾釋教。位居偽輔。為燾所深信。乃與天師寇氏說燾以謂佛教無益於世。民利有傷。勸令廢之。燾惑其言。以偽太平七年遂毀滅佛法。分遣軍士。燒掠寺社。統內僧尼悉令罷道。其有竄逸者。追捕梟斬之。四境之內無復沙門。時玄高等被害。語在本傳。師閉絕於兵革所不至處。依隱閱世及太平末。師算知燾化之將至。乃於元會日。手策金錫。即到宮門。有司奏云。有白足道人。從官門徑入。儀形可怪燾聞已。即令猛卒斬之。不傷。燾大怒自以所佩利劍斫焉。惟劍所著處有痕如紅綿。體無餘異。時有北園養虎子檻。燾驅令貽之。虎皆潛伏。終不敢近。燾試遣天師近檻。猛虎輒鳴吼。直欲搏噬。於是燾乃知佛教威神非黃老所及。即奉師上殿頂禮其足。悔責諐咎。師為說因果報應不差。指掌開示。略現神異。燾生大慚懼。改往修來。然禍惡已稔。遂感厲疾。而崔寇亦發惡病。將入死門。燾以謂禍由彼作罪。不可赦。因族滅二家。宣令國內。光復竺教。鍾梵相聞。既而孫𤀹襲位。深懲殷鑑。洪闡真風。寶㲲制度。其興也勃焉。師不知所往
The monk Damsi (曇始) was a man of Guanzhong. From the time he left his home there were many strange traces about him. His feet were whiter than his face, and though he waded muddy water they were never once wetted; so all under heaven called him the White-foot (白足) master.
In the last year of Taiyuan of Jin he took some scores of the sutras and the rules and went to Liaodong to teach. He rode the occasion and spread the teaching, set forth the three vehicles (三乘) plainly, and established them in refuge and precept. The Liang Lives of Eminent Monks makes this the beginning of the opening of the Law in Goguryeo. The time was the fifth year of King Gwanggaeto, the forty-first year of King Naemul of Silla and the fifth year of King Asin of Baekje, and it was twenty-five years after Fu Jian of Qin sent the scriptures and the image. Four years after this Faxian went west into India, and two years after that Kumarajiva was born, and the master of the Law Xuangao was born.
At the beginning of Yixi of Jin the master came back again to Guanzhong and cried the way abroad in Sanfu (三輔). A certain uncle of Wang Hu (王胡), a man of Chang'an, had been dead some years already. One day he suddenly showed his form in a dream, took Wang Hu by the hand, led him all through the hells and showed him the several fruits of deeds. When Wang Hu took his leave and would return, he said to Wang Hu, "Now that you know the cause and the fruit of things, you must serve and honour the White-foot Alian (阿練) and cultivate white deeds." Wang Hu said respectfully that he would; and when he woke he asked all round among the monks, and only Damsi was seen to have feet whiter than his face, and so he served him at once.
At the end of Jin, Helian Bobo of the Xiongnu fell upon Guanzhong and took it, and those he cut down and killed were beyond counting. The master too came to harm, but the blade could not wound him. At this Helian Bobo pardoned the monks all round and did not kill any of them; and the master hid himself away in the mountains and cultivated the hidden practices of austerity (頭陀).
Not long after, Tuoba Tao (拓跋燾) took Chang'an again and spread his power over Guanzhong and Luoyang. At that time Cui Hao (崔浩), who from his youth had studied the crooked arts (左道), was jealous of the teaching of the Buddha and hated it; and his office was the chief minister's place at that false court, so that Tuoba Tao trusted him deeply. He and Kou (寇氏), the Celestial Master (天師), then talked Tuoba Tao round, saying that the teaching of the Buddha was of no profit to the world and did harm to the good of the people, and urging him to do away with it. Tuoba Tao was taken in by their words, and in the seventh year of the false era Taiping he broke and destroyed the Law of the Buddha at last. He sent soldiers out in parties to burn and plunder the monasteries, and made all the monks and nuns within his rule give up the way; and if any fled and hid, they were hunted down, taken, beheaded and hung up. Within his four borders there was no monk left at all. At this time Xuangao and the rest came to harm; the matter is in their own lives.
The master shut himself off in a place the fighting did not reach, lay hidden and watched the age; and when Taiping was drawing to its end he reckoned beforehand that the turn for Tuoba Tao to be taught was about to come. So on the day of the New Year assembly (元會) he took a golden staff in his hand and came straight to the palace gate. The officer in charge reported, "A man of the way with white feet has come straight in through the office gate, and his bearing is strange." When Tuoba Tao heard it he had a fierce soldier cut him down at once, but he was not wounded. Tuoba Tao grew very angry and struck at him with the sharp sword he wore himself; but where the sword touched there was only a mark like red cotton wool, and there was nothing else upon his body.
At that time there was a cage in the north garden where tiger cubs were kept. Tuoba Tao had him driven into it, but the tigers all lay flat and in the end did not dare come near. Tuoba Tao then sent the Celestial Master near the cage by way of trial, and the fierce tigers at once roared and howled and would have seized and eaten him on the spot. At this Tuoba Tao knew that the power and the spirit of the teaching of the Buddha were beyond the reach of the Yellow Emperor and Laozi (黃老); and he took the master up into the hall, bowed his forehead to his feet, and repented and reproached himself for his fault. The master spoke of how the repayment of cause and fruit does not go astray, and opened it out as though pointing to his own palm, and showed a little of what is marvellous; and Tuoba Tao was greatly ashamed and afraid, mended what was past and made himself ready for what was to come.
But the calamity and the evil were ripe already, and he came at last to a grievous sickness, while Cui Hao and Kou too fell into a foul disease and were near the gate of death. Tuoba Tao held that the calamity came of the guilt those two had made and could not be forgiven, and so he wiped out both their houses to the last kin; and he sent word out through the country and made the teaching of the Buddha bright again, so that the sound of bells and of chanting answered each other. Before long his grandson Jun (𤀹) came to the throne after him, took the warning of what had gone before deeply to heart, opened out the true wind on a great scale, and set up jewelled institutions; and its rising was as a flame taking hold. Where the master went is not known.
2In praise — he gave up his body to save the drowning, and the way rose by it
贊曰：火炎崑岡。玉石俱焚。霜嚴草野。蕭蘭共悴。師之艱難險阻。誠曰殆哉。雖伐樹削跡不足比也。然隨時隱現。若青山白雲之開遮。遇害虧盈。如碧潭明月之橯樚。捐軀濟溺。道之以興。菩薩法護。正當如此。其適來桑域。決膜生盲。亦乘夙願而至者耶。
In praise it is said:
When fire burns Kungang (崑岡), jade and stone are burned together; when frost lies hard on the grassy fields, wormwood and orchid wither together. The master's hardships and steep places may truly be called perilous; the cutting down of the tree and the wiping out of the footprints are not enough to set beside them.
Yet his hiding and appearing as the times went was like white cloud opening and closing over a green mountain, and his suffering harm and waning and waxing was like the bright moon shaken in a blue pool. He gave up his body to save the drowning, and the way rose by it; so should a bodhisattva guard the Law. That he came to the land of mulberry was the lifting of the film from one blind from birth. Was he not, too, one who came riding on a vow of a former age?