智顗

《續高僧傳》繫其本傳於習禪篇，題「隋國師智者天台山國清寺釋智顗傳」〔T50n2060 0560c28〕。傳起首但記家世與所寓：「釋智顗。字德安。姓陳氏。潁川人也」〔T50n2060 0564a18〕，晉室南遷，「寓居荊州之華容焉」〔T50n2060 0564a19〕。幼時之事，傳所重者不在異瑞而在一部經：「七歲喜往伽藍。諸僧訝其情志。口授普門品。初契一遍即得」〔T50n2060 0564b03〕——普門一品，一聞即得；此後一生所講所觀，皆不出此經。「年十有八。投湘州果願寺沙門法緒而出家焉」〔T50n2060 0564b08〕。

The Continued Lives of Eminent Monks places his biography in the chapter on those who cultivated meditation, under the heading "Shi Zhiyi of Guoqing Monastery on Mount Tiantai, State Preceptor of the Sui, the Wise One" 〔T50n2060 0560c28〕. It opens with no more than his family and where they had settled: "Shi Zhiyi, styled De'an, of the Chen family, a man of Yingchuan" 〔T50n2060 0564a18〕; and when the Jin court moved south they "settled as sojourners at Huarong in Jingzhou" 〔T50n2060 0564a19〕. Of his childhood the biography rests its weight not on portents but on a single chapter of scripture: "At seven he liked to go to the monastery. The monks marvelled at the bent of his mind and taught him the Universal Gate chapter by mouth; at the first joining he had it in one pass" 〔T50n2060 0564b03〕 — one chapter of the Lotus, held after a single hearing; and everything he would afterwards expound and contemplate stayed inside that sutra. "At eighteen he went to the monk Faxu of Guoyuan Monastery in Xiangzhou and left the household life" 〔T50n2060 0564b08〕.

出家未久即北行參學，「又詣光州大蘇山慧思禪師。受業心觀」〔T50n2060 0564b13〕。初相見，思即以宿緣相許：「昔在靈山同聽法華。宿緣所追今復來矣」〔T50n2060 0564b15〕，因示普賢道場，為說四安樂行。「顗乃於此山行法華三昧。始經三夕」〔T50n2060 0564b17〕，「誦至藥王品。心緣苦行。至是真精進句。解悟便發」〔T50n2060 0564b18〕。思躬執如意在坐觀聽，語學徒曰：「此吾之義兒。恨其定力少耳」〔T50n2060 0564b26〕。

Not long after ordination he went north to study: "he came further to the meditation master Huisi of Mount Dasu in Guangzhou and took up the contemplation of mind under him" 〔T50n2060 0564b13〕. At their first meeting Huisi acknowledged him by an older bond: "Long ago on Vulture Peak we heard the Lotus together; the bond of a former life has drawn you, and now you have come again" 〔T50n2060 0564b15〕 — and so showed him the Samantabhadra sanctuary and taught him the four peaceful practices. "Zhiyi then practised the Lotus samādhi on that mountain, and when three nights had barely passed" 〔T50n2060 0564b17〕, "reciting as far as the Medicine King chapter, his mind resting on the hard practice, at the line 'this is true vigour' understanding opened in him" 〔T50n2060 0564b18〕. Huisi himself sat by with the ruyi in hand, watching and listening, and said to the students: "This is my son in the meaning of it — only I regret that his power of concentration is still slight" 〔T50n2060 0564b26〕.

及學成往辭，思曰汝於陳國有緣，往必利益。「顗便詣金陵。與法喜等三十餘人在瓦官寺。創弘禪法」〔T50n2060 0564b29〕，「綿歷八周講智度論」〔T50n2060 0564c15〕。八年之末，他自校所得而不諱其減：「初瓦官寺四十人坐。半入法門。今者二百坐禪。十人得法」〔T50n2060 0565a05〕——眾轉多而得法者轉少，此其所以去也。「語默之際每思林澤」〔T50n2060 0564c16〕，因夢巖崖萬重、滄海在下，告之門人，咸曰：「此乃會稽之天台山也。聖賢之所託矣」〔T50n2060 0564c20〕。入山之歲，「時以陳太建七年秋九月矣」〔T50n2060 0565a11〕。

When his training was done and he came to take leave, Huisi told him his affinity lay in the land of Chen and that going there would bring benefit. "Zhiyi thereupon went to Jinling, and with Fahi and some thirty others at Waguan Monastery he first spread the meditation teaching" 〔T50n2060 0564b29〕, and "for eight full years running he lectured on the Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom" 〔T50n2060 0564c15〕. At the end of those eight years he took the measure of his own work and did not conceal the falling-off: "At first at Waguan forty sat, and half of them entered the gate of the Dharma; now two hundred sit in meditation and ten obtain the Dharma" 〔T50n2060 0565a05〕 — the assembly grew and those who obtained it grew fewer, and this is why he left. "Between speech and silence he was always thinking of woods and marshes" 〔T50n2060 0564c16〕; and after he dreamed of cliffs in a thousand folds with a shoreless sea lying below and told his students of it, they all said: "This is Mount Tiantai in Kuaiji, where sages and worthies have lodged" 〔T50n2060 0564c20〕. Of the year he entered the mountain: "this was the ninth month of autumn in the seventh year of Taijian of the Chen" 〔T50n2060 0565a11〕.

晉王廣鎮揚州，致書累請奉以為師，顗初陳寡德，次讓名僧，三辭不免，乃求四願而後赴。「今開皇十一年十一月二十三日。於揚州總管金城設千僧會。敬屈授菩薩戒」〔T50n2060 0566b16〕；王頂受其旨，教曰：「大師禪慧內融。導之法澤。輒奉名為智者」〔T50n2060 0566b24〕——「智者」之號出於此。末年還天台，遺誡既畢，「言已端坐如定而卒於天台山大石像前」〔T50n2060 0567b24〕。卒歲二本並繫開皇十七年，而世壽與日不同：《續高僧傳》作「春秋六十有七。即開皇十七年十一月二十二日也」〔T50n2060 0567b25〕；其門人灌頂所撰《別傳》〔T50n2050 0191a23「門人灌頂撰」〕則作「以大隋開皇十七年歲次丁巳十一月二十四日未時入滅。春秋六十僧夏四十」〔T50n2050 0196b26〕。本登錄年欄所繫五三八至五九七與《別傳》「春秋六十」相合，二說並錄，不強為一。

Prince Jin of the Sui, garrisoned at Yangzhou, wrote again and again asking to take him as master. Zhiyi first pleaded his own want of virtue, then deferred to more famous monks, and when a third refusal would not be accepted he asked for four undertakings before he would go. "Now on the twenty-third day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year of Kaihuang, at the commandery seat of Jincheng in Yangzhou, an assembly of a thousand monks was set, and he was respectfully asked to confer the bodhisattva precepts" 〔T50n2060 0566b16〕. The prince received the instruction upon his head and declared: "In the great master, meditation and wisdom are fused within, and he leads us by the moisture of the Dharma; I therefore offer him the name Zhizhe, the Wise One" 〔T50n2060 0566b24〕 — and from this the title comes. In his last years he returned to Tiantai; his final admonitions given, "when he had said this he sat upright as though in samādhi and died before the great stone image on Mount Tiantai" 〔T50n2060 0567b24〕. Two accounts both place his death in the seventeenth year of Kaihuang but differ on the day and on his years. The Continued Lives has: "he was in his sixty-seventh year; it was the twenty-second day of the eleventh month of the seventeenth year of Kaihuang" 〔T50n2060 0567b25〕. The Separate Life composed by his disciple Guanding 〔T50n2050 0191a23, "composed by his disciple Guanding"〕 has: "he entered extinction at the wei hour on the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month of the seventeenth year of the Great Sui, the year dingsi; he was in his sixtieth year and had forty summers in the order" 〔T50n2050 0196b26〕. The dates entered in this register, 538–597, agree with the Separate Life*'s "sixtieth year"; both accounts are recorded here and neither is forced into the other.*