Wongwang圓光
1Wongwang — the god of Samgisan, Unmunsa, and the five worldly precepts
釋圓光．俗姓薜氏。或云朴。新羅王京人。年十三落髮為僧〔續高僧傳云入唐剎削〕神器恢廓。惠解超倫。校涉玄儒。愛染篇章。逸想高邁。厭居情鬧。三十歸隱三岐山影不出洞。有一比丘。來止近地。作蘭若修道。師夜坐誦念。有神呼曰。善哉凡修行者雖眾。無出法師右者。今彼比丘徑修呪術。但惱汝淨念礙我行路。而無所得。每當經歷。幾發惡心。請師誘令移去。若不□住從。當有患矣。明旦師往告彼僧曰。可移居逃害。不然將有不利。對曰。至行魔之所妨。何憂妖鬼言乎。是夕其神來訊。彼答．師恐其怒也。謬曰未委耳。何敢不聽。神曰吾己俱知其情。且可默住而見之。至夜聲動如雷。黎明往視之。有山頹于蘭若壓焉。神來證曰。吾生幾千年。威變最壯。此何足怪。因諭曰。今師雖有自利。而闕利他。何不入中朝得法波及後徒。師曰．學道於中華固所願也。海陸逈阻。不能自達。於是神祥誘西遊之事。乃以真平王十二年春三月。遂入陳遊歷講肆。領牒微言。傳稟成實．涅槃．三藏數論。便投吳之虎丘。攝想青霄。因信士請。遂講成實。企仰請益。相接如鱗。會隋兵入楊都。主將望見塔火。將救之。秖見師被縛在塔前。若無告狀。異而釋之。開皇間攝論肇興。奉佩文言。宣譽京皐。勣業既精。道東須繼。本朝上啟。有勅放還。真平二十二年庚申。隨朝聘使奈麻諸父大舍橫川還國。俄見海中異人出拜請曰。願師為我剏寺常講真詮。令弟子得勝報也。師頷之。師往來累稔。老幼相忻。王亦面申虔敬。仰若能仁。遂到三岐山舊居。午夜彼神來問往返如何。謝曰。賴爾恩護凡百適願。神曰。吾固不離扶擁。且師與海龍結剏寺約。其龍今亦偕來。師問之曰。何處為可。神曰。于彼雲門小當有群鵲啄地。即其處也。詰朝師與神龍偕歸。果見其地。即崛地有石塔存焉。便剏伽藍。額曰雲門而住之。神又不捨冥衛。一日神報曰。吾大期不久。願受菩薩戒。為長往之資。師乃授訖。因結世世相度之誓。又謂曰神之形可得見乎。曰。師可遲明望東方。有大臂貫雲接天。神曰。師見予臂乎。雖有此神。未免無常。當於某日死於某地。請來訣別。師趁期往見。一禿黑狸吱吱而斃。即其神也。西海龍女常隨聽講。適有大旱。師曰汝幸雨境內。對曰。上帝不許。我若謾雨。必獲罪於天。無所禱也。師曰。吾力能免矣。俄而南山朝隮。崇朝而雨。時天雷震即欲罰之。龍告急。師匿龍於講床下講經。天使來告曰。予受上帝命師為逋逃者。主萃不得成命奈何。師指庭中梨木曰。彼變為此樹。汝當擊之。遂震梨而去。龍乃出謝禮。以其木代已受罰。引手撫之。其樹即蘇。真平王三十年。王患句高麗屢侵封疆。欲請隋兵以征敵國。命師修乞師表。師曰。求自存而滅他。非沙門之行也。然貧道在大王之土地。費大王之衣食。敢不唯命是從。乃述以聞。師性虛閑。情多汎愛。言常含笑。慍結不形。為牋表啟書。竝出自胸襟。舉國傾奉。委以治方。乘機敷化。垂範後代。三十五年皇龍寺設百座會。邀集福田講經。師為上首。常僑居加悉寺講演真詮。沙梁部．貴山。箒頂。詣門摳衣告曰。俗士顓蒙無所知識。願賜一言。為終身之誡。師曰有菩薩戒。其別有十。若等為人臣子。恐不能行。今有世俗五戒。一曰事君以忠。二曰奉親以孝。三曰交友以信。四曰臨戰不退。五曰殺生有擇。若等行之無忽。貴山曰。他則既受命矣。但不曉殺生有擇。師曰。春夏月及六齋日不殺。是擇時也。不殺使畜。謂牛馬鷄犬。不殺細物。謂肉不足一臠。是擇物也。過此雖□所□。但不求多殺。此可謂世俗之善戒。貴山等守而勿墮。後國王染患。醫治不□。請師說法。入宮安置。或講或說。王誠心信奉。初夜見師首領。金色如日輪。宮人共覩。王疾立効。法臘既高。乘輿入內。衣服藥石。竝是王手自營用希專福。襯施之資捨充營寺。惟餘衣鉢以此盛宣正法。誘掖道俗。將終之際。王親執慰。囑累遺法兼濟斯民。為說徵詳。建福五十八年。不豫經七日。遺誡清切。端坐終于所住。皇隆寺東北虛中音樂盈空。異香充院。合國悲慶。葬具羽儀同於王禮。春秋九十九。即貞觀四年也。後有兒胎死者。聞諺傳埋于有德人墓側。子孫不絕。乃私瘞之。即日震。胎屍擲于塋外。三岐山浮屠至今存焉。
The monk Wongwang (圓光) had the worldly surname Seol (薜), and some say Bak. He was a man of the royal capital of Silla. At the age of thirteen he shaved his head and became a monk.〔The Continued Lives of Eminent Monks says that he shaved his head after he entered Tang.〕 His capacity was wide and open, and his wise understanding stood out from the crowd. He worked his way through the dark learning and the learning of the Confucians, and he loved to write. His thought soared far and high, and he hated to live where it was noisy. At thirty he went back to Samgisan and hid there, and his shadow did not come out of the valley.
There was a monk who came and stayed on the ground nearby, where he built a nanya (蘭若), a forest hermitage, and practised the way. As the master sat reciting at night, a god called to him and said, "How good this is. Of all those who practise, and they are many, there is none above the master of the Law. That monk over there practises spells and nothing else. He only troubles your pure recollection and blocks the road I walk, and he gains nothing by it. Every time I pass that way, an evil thought has risen in me more than once. I ask the master to coax him into moving away. If he stays on and does not do as he is asked, there will surely be trouble."
The next morning the master went and said to that monk, "You should move and escape the harm. If you do not, something will happen that is not to your good." He answered, "The utmost practice is what demons obstruct. Why should I trouble myself over the words of a goblin?" That evening the god came and asked, and the master began to pass on the other man's answer, but he feared the god's anger and said falsely, "I have not told him yet. How would he dare not to listen?" The god said, "I already know the whole of it. Just stay quiet and watch."
When night came a sound rolled like thunder. At daybreak the master went and looked, and a mountain had fallen and crushed the hermitage. The god came and confirmed it. "I have lived some thousands of years, and my power to work change is the strongest there is. What is strange about this?" Then he counseled him. "The master now has what profits himself, but what profits others is wanting in him. Why do you not go into the Central Plain, get the Law, and let it reach those who come after?" The master said, "To learn the way in China is truly what I wish, but sea and land are far and blocked, and I cannot reach it by myself." So the god told him in detail how to go west, and led him to it.
In the spring, in the third month of the twelfth year of King Jinpyeong, he entered Chen at last, went the round of the lecture halls, wrote down the subtle words, and received in transmission the Treatise on the Completion of Truth (成實論), the Nirvana Sutra, the Tripitaka, and the several treatises. Then he went to Huqiu (虎丘) in Wu and gathered his thought in the blue sky. At the request of lay believers he lectured on the Treatise on the Completion of Truth, and those who looked up to him and asked to be taught further came on one after another like the scales of a fish. Just then the soldiers of Sui entered Yangdu (楊都). The commanding general saw from far off that fire was on the pagoda, and he went to put it out. He saw only the master bound before the pagoda with no look of appeal on his face. He thought it strange, and set him free.
In the Kaihuang years the Compendium of the Great Vehicle (攝大乘論) was just beginning to rise, and he took up its words and kept them, and his fame rang out in the capital. His work was already fine and exact, and the way had to be carried on in the east, so when his own court sent up a request, an imperial decree let him return. In the twenty-second year of King Jinpyeong, the year gyeongsin, he came back to the country with Jebu (諸父), of the rank of nama, and Hoengcheon (橫川), of the rank of daesa, envoys who had gone to court.
Not long after, a strange person came out from the middle of the sea, bowed, and asked, "I pray the master will build a monastery for me and always lecture there on the true teaching, so that your disciple may gain a good recompense." The master nodded to him.
The master had been away and back over several years, and old and young rejoiced together, and the king too met him face to face and showed his reverence and looked up to him as to the Buddha. At last he reached his old dwelling on Samgisan. In the middle of the night that god came and asked how it had gone, there and back, and the master thanked him. "Leaning on your kindness and your protection, everything went as I wished." The god said, "I never left off upholding and guarding you. And the master made a promise with the dragon of the sea to build a monastery. That dragon has now come along too."
The master asked, "What place would do?" The god said, "There at the small place of Unmun (雲門) there will be a flock of magpies pecking at the ground, and that is the place." The next morning the master went back together with the god and the dragon, and he did indeed see that ground, and when they dug it there was a stone pagoda. So he built a monastery there, named it Unmun, and dwelt in it.
The god still did not give up his hidden guard. One day the god told him, "My great term is not far off. I wish to receive the bodhisattva precepts, to be my provision for the long journey." The master gave them to him and finished. By this they made a pledge to carry each other across, life after life. The master said also, "May I see the shape of a god?" "Let the master wait for the light of dawn and look toward the east." A great arm pierced the clouds and reached the sky. The god said, "Did the master see my arm? Though I have this power, I have not escaped from impermanence. On such a day, in such a place, I shall die. I ask you to come and take leave of me." The master went at the appointed time and looked, and a black fox whimpered and died. That was the god.
The dragon woman of the Western Sea always came and listened to the lectures. Once there was a great drought, and the master said, "It would be a mercy if you would rain within our borders." She answered, "The Lord on High does not permit it. If I rain without leave, I shall surely be guilty before heaven, and there will be nowhere to pray." The master said, "My power can spare you that." A little later the morning vapor rose on Namsan, and by mid-morning the rain came down. Then the thunder of heaven shook and was about to punish her, and the dragon told him her danger. The master hid the dragon under the lecture seat (講床) and lectured on a sutra. A messenger of heaven came and told him, "I have received the command of the Lord on High, and the master has hidden the one who fled, so I cannot carry the command out. What am I to do?" The master pointed at a pear tree in the courtyard and said, "She has been changed into this tree. You should strike that." So the lightning struck the pear tree and the messenger went away. The dragon then came out and gave her thanks, and because the tree had taken her punishment in her place she put out her hand and stroked it, and the tree came back to life.
In the thirtieth year of King Jinpyeong, the king was troubled that Goguryeo invaded the borders again and again, and he wished to ask for the soldiers of Sui and strike the enemy country, and he ordered the master to draft the memorial asking for troops. The master said, "To seek one's own survival and wipe out another is not the conduct of a monk. Yet this poor monk lives on the land of the great king and spends the clothing and the food of the great king. How should I dare not to follow the command?" So he wrote it and sent it up.
The master was empty and unhurried in nature, and his feelings held much of a wide love. His words always carried a smile, and no look of anger ever showed on him. The memoranda (牋), the memorials (表), the petitions (啟), and the letters (書) that he wrote all came out of his own breast. The whole country leaned toward him and served him, and entrusted him with the ways of governing. He took the occasion as it came to spread the transforming teaching, and he handed down a model to later ages.
In the thirty-fifth year an assembly of the hundred seats was held at Hwangnyongsa, where the fields of merit were invited and gathered and the sutras were lectured on, and the master sat at the head of them. He always lodged at Gasilsa and lectured there on the true teaching. Gwisan (貴山) and Chuhang (箒頂) of Saryangbu came to his gate, drew up their robes, and said, "Common scholars are dull and know nothing. We pray you to grant us one word, to be the rule of our whole lives."
The master said, "There are the bodhisattva precepts, and they come to ten. You are sons who serve as subjects to another, and I fear you cannot keep them. Now there are five precepts for the world. The first is to serve your lord with loyalty. The second is to serve your parents with filial care. The third is to keep company with your friends in good faith. The fourth is not to retreat when you face battle. The fifth is to choose what you kill among living things. Practise these, and do not take them lightly."
Gwisan said, "We have taken the command for the rest. Only we do not understand what it is to choose what we kill." The master said, "Not to kill in the months of spring and summer, and on the six fast days, is to choose the time. Not to kill the beasts that work for us means the ox, the horse, the fowl, and the dog. Not to kill small creatures means those whose flesh does not come to a single mouthful. This is to choose the creature. Beyond this, even when there is a use for it, only do not seek to kill much. This may be called a good precept for the world." Gwisan and the other kept it and never let it fall.
Later the king of the country fell ill, and the physicians could not cure him, and he asked the master to preach the Law and had him brought into the palace and lodged there. The master lectured at times and preached at times, and the king believed and served with a sincere heart. In the early evening they saw that the master's head was golden like the wheel of the sun, and the people of the palace all saw it together. The king's illness was cured at once.
His years in the robe were high already, and he rode in a carriage into the inner palace. His clothing and his medicine were all prepared by the king's own hand, in the hope of keeping the blessing to himself alone. The goods he received in offering he gave out entirely to fill the building of monasteries, and he kept only his robe and his bowl. With this he spread the true law in abundance and drew on and upheld both monks and laymen. When he was near his end the king himself took his hand and comforted him, and asked him to entrust the Law he was leaving, and with it to save the people, and to tell the signs in detail.
In the fifty-eighth year of Geonbok he was unwell, and after seven days his parting admonition was clear and urgent, and he sat upright and came to his end in the place where he dwelt. In the empty air northeast of Hwangnyungsa music filled the sky, and a strange fragrance filled the monastery. The whole country grieved and praised him. The furnishings of the funeral and the ceremonial array were the same as the rites for a king. He was ninety-nine years old. This was the fourth year of Zhenguan.
Afterward there was a woman whose child died in the womb, and having heard the common saying that if you bury such a child beside the grave of a man of virtue his descendants will not be cut off, she buried it there in secret. That very day the lightning struck, and the body of the unborn child was thrown outside the grave mound. The stupa on Samgisan still stands today.
2His high disciple Wonan
高弟圓安亦新羅人。機鋒頴銳。性希歷覽。仰慕幽永。遂北趣九都。東觀不耐。又遊西燕北魏。後展帝京。備通方俗。尋諸經論。跨轢大綱。洞清纖旨。高軌光塵。以道素有聞。特進肅瑀請住所造藍田津梁寺。供給四事。不知所終。
His high disciple Wonan (圓安) was also a man of Silla. The point of his mind was sharp, and by nature he loved to see and go through everything. He looked up to and longed for what is deep and lasting, and at last he went north to Gudo (九都) and looked eastward on Bullae (不耐), and he travelled also to Yan in the west and to Northern Wei. Later he reached the capital of the emperor, and he came to know the customs of every region, and he searched the several sutras and treatises, striding across their great cords and making clear even their finest sense. His tracks were high and the dust he raised was bright, and since his following of the way had been heard of from the first, Su Yu (肅瑀), a specially advanced officer, asked him to stay at the Jinliang Monastery he had built at Lantian (藍田), and provided him with the four requisites. How he came to his end is not known.
3In praise — he ran through inside and outside and set out the Law to each capacity
贊曰：昔遠公不廢俗典。講論之際。引莊老連類。能使人悟解玄旨。若光師之論世俗戒。蓋學通內外。隨機設法之効也。然殺生有擇者。夫豈湯網去三面。仲尼弋不射宿之謂耶。又其動天神返天使則道力固可知也已。
In praise it is said:
Long ago Huiyuan (遠公) did not throw away the books of the world, and in the course of his lectures he drew in Zhuangzi and Laozi and set them side by side, and so he made people awaken to the deep sense. That master Wongwang discussed precepts for the world is, in the main, the fruit of learning that runs through inside and outside, and of setting out the Law according to each person's capacity.
But when he said to choose what you kill among living things, was this not saying what King Tang did when he took away three sides of the net, and what Zhongni did when he did not shoot a sleeping bird with his stringed arrow? And when we see that he moved a god of heaven and sent back a messenger of heaven, the power of the way may truly be known.