Yetgeul › Haedong Goseungjeon (Lives of Eminent Monks of the Land East of the Sea) › Complete in one volume

Hyeeop惠業

Haedong Goseungjeon (Lives of Eminent Monks of the Land East of the Sea) 海東高僧傳 · Gakhun · 1215 · 1 passages · 181 Chinese characters · reading time 0.7 min

Haedong Goseungjeon (Lives of Eminent Monks of the Land East of the Sea) Complete in one volume The oldest collection of monks' lives that survives in Korea. Gakhun made it in 1215 at the king's command, sixty-six years before the Samguk Yusa. It carries the lives of eighteen men — Sundo, the first to come to Goguryeo; Malananta, who crossed over to Baekje; Yeomchok, from whose severed neck white milk is said to have sprung in Silla; Wongwang, who set out the five precepts for the world; and Ariyabalma and Hyeeop, who stayed at Nalanda and ended their days there. How King Jinheung raised up the wonhwa and established the hwarang is set down here as well.

1Hyeeop — He copied the text out under the Buddha's Tooth tree

釋惠業。器局冲深。氣度凝深。巉巖容儀。戌削風骨。直辭邊壤。遽入中華。遂於貞觀年中往遊西域。涉流沙之廣漠。登雪嶺之嶔岑。每以清暉啟曙。即潛伏幽林。皓月淪霄。乃崩波永路。輕生徇法。志切宣通。遂往菩提寺。觀禮聖蹤。又於那爛陀寺。寄跡棲真久之請讀淨名經。因撿唐本。淹通綸貫。梁論下記云。在佛齒樹下。新羅僧惠業寫記。傳云。業終于是寺。年將六十餘矣。所寫梵本竝在那爛陀寺焉。

The monk Hyeeop (惠業) was empty and deep in what he could hold, and his spirit and his measure were gathered and deep. His bearing stood up like a crag, and his frame and his air were cut clean. He took leave of the border land at once, and at once went into China.

Then in the Zhenguan era he journeyed to the Western Regions. He crossed the wide desert of running sand and climbed the steep peaks of the Snow Range. Whenever the clear light opened the dawn he hid himself in a deep wood, and when the white moon sank in the sky he broke the waves and went on the long road. He held his life light and followed the Law, and his will was set hard on spreading it wide.

At last he went to Bodhi Monastery and bowed in reverence before the traces of the holy ones. He also left his tracks at Nalanda Monastery and dwelt there in the truth for a long while. He asked to read the Vimalakirti Sutra, and from this he examined the Tang copy and went through the whole of it. The note written under the Liang lun (梁論) says, "Under the Buddha's Tooth tree, Hyeeop, a monk of Silla, copied this out."

It is handed down that Hyeeop died at this monastery, when his years were something over sixty. The Sanskrit copies he wrote out are all at Nalanda Monastery.

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