Jajang Establishes the Precepts慈藏定律

Jajang establishes the precepts.

The daedeok Jajang (慈藏) was of the Kim clan, the son of Murim (茂林), a jingol of Jinhan of the rank of sopan.〔This is the name of the third-grade rank.〕

His father had passed through pure and important offices but had no child at all to succeed him. So he turned his heart to the Three Treasures, made a Thousand-Part Avalokitesvara (千部觀音), and hoped for one child.

He prayed, "If a son is born, I will give him up to be a ford and a bridge in the sea of the Dharma."

The mother suddenly dreamed that a star fell into her bosom, and she conceived.

He was born on the same day as the World-Honored Shakyamuni, so he was named Seonjongnang (善宗郞).

His spirit and will were clear and wise, and his literary gift grew richer by the day, yet he was not stained by worldly tastes.

He lost both parents early, and coming to hate the clamor of the dusty world all the more, he left his wife and children, gave up his fields and gardens, and made them Wonnyeongsa (元寧寺).

He lived alone in a secluded and dangerous place, not avoiding wolves and tigers, and practiced the contemplation of dry bones. Fearing that he might grow even slightly tired and lazy, he built a small room, surrounded it with thorns, and sat inside it naked. If he moved he was pricked at once, and he hung his head from a beam to drive off drowsiness.

Just then the post of chief minister fell vacant, and by family standing the deliberation fell on him; he was summoned several times but did not go.

The king then gave an order: "If he does not come, cut off his head."

Jajang heard it and said, "I would rather keep the precepts for one day and die than break the precepts and live a hundred years."

When this was reported, the king permitted him to go forth as a monk.

So he hid deep among the rocks and thickets and took no care for grain, and then a strange bird brought fruit in its beak and offered it, and he ate it from his hand.

Soon he dreamed that a heavenly being came and gave him the five precepts, and only then did he come out of the valley. The men and women of the district vied to come and receive the precepts.

Jajang lamented that he had been born in a borderland, and hoped to receive the great teaching in the west.

In the third year of Inpyeong, the byeongsin year,〔this is the tenth year of Zhenguan〕 he received the royal command and went west into Tang with a dozen or so disciples, Seungsil (僧實) and others, to pay homage at Qingliangshan.

On the mountain is a clay image of the great sage Manjusri, and in that country it is passed down that "Indra brought craftsmen and carved it."

Jajang prayed before the image for a hidden response, and in a dream the image stroked the crown of his head and gave him a Sanskrit verse. When he woke he could not interpret it.

In the morning a strange monk came and explained it.〔This has already appeared in the section on the nine-story pagoda of Hwangnyongsa.〕

He also said, "Though you study ten thousand teachings, none surpasses this."

He also handed him a robe, relics, and other things, and vanished.〔Jajang at first kept this hidden, so it is not recorded in the Tang Biographies of Monks.〕

Jajang, knowing he had received the holy prophecy, came down from the North Terrace and reached Taihe Pond.

When he entered the capital, Taizong sent an envoy to comfort him and lodged him at Shengguang Cloister, and his favors and gifts were frequent and generous.

Jajang disliked being so busily surrounded, sent up a memorial, and went into the eastern cliffs of Yunjisi on Zhongnanshan, where he built a room against the rock and lived three years.

Humans and spirits received the precepts, and divine responses came thick and fast day after day, but they are too many to record.

Then he entered the capital again, and again received a comforting edict and a gift of two hundred bolts of silk for his clothing.

In the seventeenth year of Zhenguan, the gyemyo year, Queen Seondeok of his home country sent up a memorial asking for his return.

An edict granted it, and he was called into the palace and given one silk robe and five hundred lengths of colored silk; the crown prince also gave two hundred lengths and many gifts.

Jajang, saying that in his own country the sutras and images were not sufficient, asked to take back one set of the Great Canon and all the banners, flags, and flowered canopies that might bring blessing, and loaded them all.

When he arrived the whole country welcomed him with joy. He was ordered to live at Bunhwangsa〔the Tang biography writes Wangbun〕 and was attended generously.

One summer he was invited into the palace to lecture on the Mahayana treatises, and he also expounded the bodhisattva precepts at Hwangnyongsa for seven days and seven nights.

Heaven sent down sweet rain, and clouds and mist darkly covered the hall where he lectured, and the four assemblies all marveled at the wonder.

The court deliberated:

"Though Buddhism has spread eastward for hundreds and thousands of years, the rules for upholding, practicing, and honoring it are not in place. Without governing by a guiding thread it cannot be made pure."

By petition and royal command Jajang was made daeguktong (大國統), and all the regulations for monks and nuns were entrusted entirely to him.

〔On examination, in the Tianbao years of Northern Qi the state set up ten tong, and between Liang and Chen there were such titles as guktong, jutong, and doyuna. In Silla, in the eleventh year of King Jinheung, the Dharma master Anjang was made daeseoseong, and the next year the Goguryeo Dharma master Hyeryang was made guktong, with nine jutong and eighteen guntong. That with Jajang a single daeguktong was set up again was probably not a regular post.

Later, in the first year of the great king Wonseong, a monastic office was set up again and called Jeongbeopjeon.

The local biography says that when Jajang went into Tang, Taizong received him at Shiqian Hall, asked him to lecture on the Avatamsaka Sutra, sweet dew fell from heaven, and he was made state preceptor, but this is a wild claim. Neither the Tang biography nor the National History has any such text.〕

Jajang, meeting this fine opportunity, spread the teaching with vigor.

He had the five divisions (部) of monks and nuns each redouble their study, preached the precepts every half month, examined them all in winter and spring so that they knew what was kept and what was broken, and set officers to maintain this.

He also sent inspectors to go around and examine the provincial temples, to warn the monks against faults and to adorn the sutras and images strictly, and made this a standing rule.

The protection of the Dharma in that age flourished from this. It was like Confucius returning from Wei to Lu and correcting the music so that the Ya and the Song each found their proper place.

At this time among the people of the country, eight or nine houses in ten received the precepts and honored the Buddha, and those who shaved their heads and asked for ordination increased month by month and year by year.

So he built Tongdosa and raised an ordination platform to ordain those who came from all directions.〔The matter of the ordination platform has already appeared above.〕

Also, at Wonnyeongsa, rebuilt from the house in the village of his birth, he held a completion assembly and lectured on the ten thousand verses of the Avatamsaka Sutra, and there was the response of fifty-two women appearing in bodily form to bear witness to the hearing.

He had his disciples plant trees to that number to mark the wonder, and so they were called the Trees of Good Knowledge (知識樹).

He once said that the country's dress was not the same as that of the states of China, and put the matter to the court, which signed its approval as right.

So in the third year of Queen Jindeok, the giyu year, the court dress of China was worn for the first time.

The next year, the gyeongsul year, the Chinese calendar was also adopted and the era name Yonghui (永徽) was used for the first time.

From then on, at every court audience Silla stood among the upper vassal states; this was Jajang's merit.

In his last years he took leave of the capital and built Sudasa (水多寺) in Gangneung-gun〔present Myeongju〕 and lived there.

Again in a dream a strange monk, in the form he had seen at the North Terrace, came and told him, "Tomorrow I will see you at Daesongjeong."

He woke in alarm, set out early, and reached Songjeong, and indeed Manjusri responded and came. When he asked about the essentials of the Dharma, Manjusri said:

"Let us meet again at the place where the kudzu coils (葛蟠地) on Taebaeksan."

Then he hid himself and did not appear.〔At Songjeong to this day no thorn bushes grow, and hawks and sparrowhawks and such do not roost there, it is said.〕

Jajang went to Taebaeksan and searched, and seeing a great serpent coiled beneath a tree, he said to his attendant, "This is what is called the place where the kudzu coils."

So he built Seongnamwon〔present Jeongamsa〕 and waited for the holy one to descend.

Then there was an old layman in a ragged monk's robe who came carrying a dead puppy in a kudzu basket and said to the attendant, "I have only come to see Jajang."

The gatekeeper said, "Since I took up the broom here I have never seen anyone dare speak our master's name so freely. Who are you to talk such madness?"

The layman said, "Just tell your master."

So he went in and told him, and Jajang, not recognizing who it was, said, "He must be a madman."

The disciple went out, scolded him, and drove him off, and the layman said:

"I will go back, I will go back. How could one who holds to the notion of a self see me?"

Then he turned the basket over and shook it out, and the puppy changed into a lion throne; he mounted it, sat, and went off radiating light.

Jajang heard of it and only then put on his ceremonial dignity, ran after the light, and climbed the southern ridge, but it was already far away and he could not reach it.

At last he threw himself down and died. He was cremated and his bones were placed in a stone hollow.

In all, the temples and pagodas Jajang built numbered more than ten, and every time one was raised there was sure to be an auspicious wonder.

So the offerings of the faithful filled the marketplace, and the work was finished in only a few days.

Jajang's implements and cloth socks, together with the wooden duck pillow presented by the dragon of Taihe Pond and the World-Honored Shakyamuni's yuui robe (由衣) and other things, are together at Tongdosa.

Also, in Heonyang-hyeon〔present Eonyang〕 there is Abyusa (鴨遊寺); the duck of the pillow once showed a wonder there, and so it was named.

There was also a monk Wonseung (圓勝), who studied in the west before Jajang and returned with him to their homeland, and is said to have helped spread the Vinaya school.

In praise it is said:

Once he went toward Qingliang, woke from the dream, and came back, The seven sections and the three groups of precepts opened all at once. Wishing to shame the dress of monk and layman alike, He cut the robes of the eastern country to the pattern of the great land.