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卷二傳二十二普賢寺法淨尼

法淨。江北人也。年二十值亂隨父避地秣陵門修釋教。淨少出家住永福寺。戒行清潔明於事理。沈思精研深究義奧。與寶賢尼名輩略齊。宋明皇帝異之。泰始元年敕住普賢寺。宮內接遇禮兼師友。二年敕為京邑都維那。在事公正確然殊絕。隨方引汲歸德如流。荊楚諸尼及通家婦女。莫不遠修書嚫求結知識。其陶治德風皆類此也。

諮其戒範者七百人。年六十五。元徽元年卒也

2.22 (Tsai no.35) Fa-ching

The nun Fa-ching (Pure Law) (409-473) of Universal Wisdom Convent

Fa-ching originally came from north of the Yangtze River. When she was twenty, her family met with civil disorder, and she accompanied her father and fled to Mo-ling [which was in the vicinity of the capital of the Sung dynasty].

The family practiced the religion of Shākyamuni Buddha. Fa-ching left the household life while still very young and dwelled in Eternal Blessings Convent. Her observance of the monastic rules was unsullied; she understood the principles of things; she immersed her thought in subtleties and deeply probed profundities. Her reputation was comparable to Pao-hsien's (no. 34).

Emperor Ming of Sung (439-465-472) considered her above the ordinary, and, in the first year of the t'ai-shih reign period (465), he decreed by imperial order that she live in Universal Wisdom Convent. Within the royal palace she was warmly received and respected as both teacher and friend. In the second year (466) she was made, by imperial decree, the director of conventual affairs in the capital. In her work she was most impartial and just; her influence spread out in waves, and those converted by her virtue were like a torrent. Of all the women of the surrounding territory of Ching and Ch'u, both nuns and other women who could claim any association through family connections, there was none who did not send letters from afar, seeking her acquaintance.

The formative power of her moral excellence was always like this, and those who consulted her as a model for the observance of the monastic rules numbered seven hundred persons.

Fa-ching died in the first year of the yüan-hui reign period (473) at age 65.

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IATHPublished by The Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, © Copyright 2003 by Anne Kinney and the University of Virginia