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Hyeryun惠輪

Haedong Goseungjeon (Lives of Eminent Monks of the Land East of the Sea) 海東高僧傳 · Gakhun · 1215 · 1 passages · 183 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.

1Hyeryun — He went west with Hyeonjo and stayed ten years

釋惠輪。新羅人。梵名般若跋摩〔唐云惠甲〕自本國出家。翹心聖境。泛舶而凌閩越。涉步而屆長安。寒暑備受。艱危罄盡。奉勅隨玄照法師西行充侍。飛梯架險。既至西國。遍禮奇蹤。寓居菴摩羅波國信者寺淹住十載。近住次東邊。犍陀羅山茶寺貲產豐饒。供養飡設。餘莫加也。其北方胡僧往來者。皆住此寺。蜂屯雲集。各修法門。輪既善梵言。薄閑俱舍。來日尚在。年向四十矣。具如義淨三藏求法高僧傳中。

The monk Hyeryun (惠輪) was a man of Silla. His Sanskrit name was Banyabalma (般若跋摩) 〔In the language of Tang, Hyegap (惠甲).〕 He left home in his own country and set his heart up toward the land of the holy ones. He put out in a ship and crossed over Min (閩) and Yue (越), and he went on foot until he came to Chang'an. He took cold and heat alike, and he used up every hardship and danger.

By imperial command he went west in the train of the master of the Law Hyeonjo and served him on the way. They flew ladders across the steep places, and when they had reached the countries of the west they made reverence at one strange site after another. He lodged at Sinja Monastery (信者寺) in the country of Ammarapa (菴摩羅波) and stayed there ten years. Of late he lives on the eastern edge of it. Geondara Sancha Monastery (犍陀羅山茶寺) is rich in property, and no other place can go beyond it in the offerings and the meals it sets out. All the monks of the Western Regions in the north who come and go stay at this monastery, swarming like bees and gathering like clouds, and each one keeps his own gate of the Law.

Hyeryun was already good at the Sanskrit tongue, and he was fairly at home in the Treasury of Abhidharma (俱舍論). He is still alive today, and his years are close to forty. The details are as they stand in the Record of Eminent Monks Who Sought the Law by the Tripitaka master Yijing (義淨).