The Venerable High Masters Kashyapa Matanga and Gobharana
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Kashyapa Matanga and Gobharana were two Dharma Masters from India who co-translated the Sutra in Forty-two Sections (\u300a\u56db\u5341\u4e8c\u7ae0\u7d93\u300b), in the later Han Dynasty. The Han Dynasty was divided into the Eastern Han and the Western Han, and the period referred to here is the Eastern Han. In the Eastern Han, during the third year of the Yongping (\u6c38\u5e73) reign period (62 A.D.), Emperor Ming had a dream. He dreamed of a golden man who had a halo of light which shone forth from the crown of his head and streamed out through empty space into the palace where the Emperor was sleeping. The next day he questioned his officials about the dream and an astrologer named Fu Yi (\u5085\u6bc5) said to the Emperor, \u201cI have heard that in India there was a holy one whom people called the Buddha. Your dream, Your Majesty, certainly is of the Buddha.\u201d<\/p>\n
A scholar named Wang Zun (\u738b\u9075) also spoke to the Emperor: \u201cIn the Zhou Dynasty, there was a book written which was called Records of Strange Events (\u300a\u5468\u66f8\u7570\u8a18\u300b). In that book it was stated:<\/p>\n
When the Buddha was born, the creeks and rivers overflowed their banks, the entire earth quaked, and a five-colored light pierced the heavens.\u201d<\/p>\n
At that time there was an astrologer, also a diviner, named Su You (\u8607\u7531). He consulted the I Ching (\u300a\u6613\u7d93\u300b) and got the hexagram \u201cQian (\u4e7e),\u201d \u201cnine in the fifth place,\u201d \u201cflying dragon in the heavens,\u201d and knew from that, that a great Sage had been born in the West, in India. That Sage would transmit a teaching which after five hundred years would be transmitted to China.<\/p>\n
At that time, the King of Zhou (\u5468\u662d\u738b) ordered that the details of the event be carved in stone as a record and then buried at a certain spot south of the city to wait and see if the event would actually occur\u2014to see if five hundred years hence, the Buddhadharma would actually be transmitted to China.<\/p>\n
Later, during the reign of King Mu (\u5468\u7a46\u738b), there was a massive earthquake which moved heaven and earth. A white rainbow with twelve rays arched through the sun. At that time there was another astrologer named Hu Duo (\u6248\u591a) who also used the I Ching to reckon the hexagrams, and he figured out, \u201dThis is a great Sage from the West who has entered extinction. In India, earlier in the Zhou Dynasty, this great Sage came into the world and now he has entered Nirvana.\u201d So, although when the Buddha entered the world and entered extinction he was very far from China, nonetheless, they knew about it in China. The Buddha\u2019s appearance in the world was no chance event.<\/p>\n
When the Emperor Ming of Han had the dream about the Buddha, he commanded Cai Yin (\u8521\u6114), Qin Jing (\u79e6\u666f), Wang Zun, and others to go to India to seek the Buddhadharma. In India they met Kashyapa Matanga and Gobharana, and these two monks returned to China with Cai Yin, Qin Jing, and Wang Zun, arriving in Luoyang (\u6d1b\u967d) in the tenth year of the Yongping reign period (69 A.D.). They came carrying the Sutras on a white horse, whereupon the Emperor of Han established White Horse Monastery (\u767d\u99ac\u5bfa). There they translated The Sutra in Forty-two Sections Spoken by the Buddha, making it the first Sutra transmitted to China.<\/p>\n
At that time Daoism flourished in China. When Buddhism arrived in China, the Daoist masters became jealous. By the fourteenth year of the Yongping reign period, they had had enough. On New Year\u2019s Day they met with the Emperor and told him that Buddhism was false, that it was a barbarian religion, not Chinese, \u201cYou should abolish Buddhism,\u201d they urged. \u201cIf you will not abolish it, then you should at least have a contest in order to compare Buddhism with Daoism.\u201d They suggested that the texts spoken by the Buddha and the Daoists texts be put together in a pile and then burned. Whichever texts did not burn would be the true ones.<\/p>\n
On the fifteenth day of the new year, Daoist Master and leader Chu Shanxin (\u891a\u5584\u4fe1), as well as five hundred other Daoist Masters, assembled at the southern gate of White Horse Monastery. They put the Daoist texts and the Buddhist texts together and then prayed to the Old Man of Mount Tai (\u6cf0\u5c71), saying, \u201cDivine Lord, Virtuous One of the Way, please grant us an efficacious response to insure that our Daoist texts will not burn and that the Buddhist Sutras will.\u201d<\/p>\n
At that time there were many Daoist Masters with spiritual penetrations. They could mount the fog and ride the clouds. They could fly through the heavens and hide in the earth. They could vanish into thin air. They had used the charms and spells of the Daoist religion to gain spiritual powers. But when the fire was lit, guess what happened? The Buddhist Sutras did not burn. Instead, they emitted light. The shariras of the Buddha emitted a five-colored light as bright as the sun, illumining the whole world. The light shone into empty space and formed a great canopy which covered everyone in the Great Assembly. As soon as the Daoist texts were set on fire, they burned. And those who before could mount the clouds and ride the fog couldn\u2019t anymore. They didn\u2019t have any more spiritual penetrations. Those who before could fly could no longer fly. Those who before could hide in the earth could no longer hide in the earth. Those who before could vanish could no longer vanish. When they spoke their charms, they were no longer efficacious. There wasn\u2019t any response. The Daoist texts burned to a crisp and the Daoist Masters Chu Shanxin and Fei Shucai (\u8cbb\u53d4\u624d) just about died of rage. In the midst of the fury of the masters, two or three hundred of their disciples shaved their heads on the spot and became Buddhist monks. So the first time Daoism and Buddhism came to grips, the Daoists were defeated. After the book burning, the two Venerable Ones, Kashyapa Matanga and Gobharana, ascended into empty space and manifested the eighteen transformations of an Arhat. The upper part of their bodies emitted water, the lower part of their bodies emitted fire; the upper part of their bodies emitted fire, the lower part of their bodies emitted water; they walked about in empty space; they lay down and went to sleep in empty space, and so forth. Because of those manifestations, the Emperor and the people all came to believe in Buddhism. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Venerable High Masters Kashyapa Matanga and Gobharana \u651d\u6469\u9a30\u5c0a\u8005\u3001\u7afa\u6cd5\u862d\u5c0a\u8005 Kashyapa Matanga and Gobharana were two Dharma Masters from India who co-translated the Sutra in Forty-two … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1750","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbm-online.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbm-online.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbm-online.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbm-online.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbm-online.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1750"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbm-online.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1751,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbm-online.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1750\/revisions\/1751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbm-online.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}