University of Virginia Library

51. Teh-leh

[OMITTED]

The nun Teh-leh (Joy in Virtue) (421-501) of Brightness of Ch'i
Convent

Teh-leh's secular surname was Sun. Her family was from P'i-ling [to
the southeast of the capital].[76] Her great-great-grandfather, Sun Yü,[77]
during the Chin dynasty, was the governor of Yü Province [which lay
west of the capital on the north bank of the Yangtze River].[78]

Teh-leh was born with two teeth in her mouth and, as she grew up,
was often able to see clearly in a dark room without using either lamp
or candle. She wished to leave the secular life, and her parents, who
loved and cherished her, did nothing to stand in her way. When she
reached the age of eight they gave permission for Teh-leh and her sister
to enter the religious life together and become the disciples of the nun
Kuang of Chin-ling.[79]

After they had received the obligation to observe all the precepts of
the monastic life, they both went to the capital [to pursue their study
of Buddhism] and lived in Southern Eternal Peace Convent. Teh-leh,
of steadfast determination, diligently labored at her studies day and
night, thoroughly investigating both the scriptures and monastic rules,
conversing about them in an elegant and refined way that gained the
approval of Emperor Wen (407-424-453) of the Sung dynasty.[80]

In the seventh year of the yüan-chia reign period (430), the foreign
monk Gunavarman arrived in the capital.[81] The grand general of the
Sung [I-k'ang, prince of P'eng-ch'eng] (409-451),[82] built Kingdom
Convent (I, Pao-ch'ang, the complier, note that it was located north of

Hedge Garden Monastery) and invited Teh-leh and other nuns to live
there.[83] In the eleventh year (434), more than ten nuns from Sri Lanka
arrived and thus the Chinese nuns were able to receive from the foreign
monk Sanghavarman the obligation to keep all the monastic precepts
[in the proper form].[84]

In the twenty-first year (444), the nuns Fa-ching and T'an-lan of
that same convent,[85] because of their involvement in K'ung Hsi-hsien's
(d. 445) plots and intrigue against the government, brought about
great harm to the Way [of Buddhism] and the destruction of their own
convent, forcing all the nuns there to disperse.[86] Teh-leh moved to
Eastern Green Garden Convent, where she delved deeply into the
practice of meditation, thoroughly investigating that marvellous
realm.

After Emperor Wen died (453), she left the capital and traveled east
toward Kuei-chi and took up residence in Reflecting Brightness Convent
on White Mountain in the Yen region [to the southeast of Kuei-chi].[87]
She taught easily and without fuss the students who gathered
around her like clouds, causing [the Buddhist] religion to flourish in
the southeast.

In the fifth year of the yung-ming reign period (487) of Ch'i, the
devout [Buddhist] layman Yüan Chien, originally from Ch'en-liu
[west of the capital],[88] donated his own residence to set up Brightness
of Ch'i Convent.[89] The nuns, young and old alike, happily submitted
to Teh-leh's leadership while those near and far, admiring her character,
all wished to rely on her as their teacher, with the result that her
disciples numbered over two hundred persons. She did not keep the
donations made to her but rather, making no distinctions, distributed
them equally to both monks and nuns who came to participate in the
great gathering for lectures and preaching that she convened every
year.

Teh-leh died in the third year of the yung-yüan reign period (501) at
the age of eighty-one.

In the region of Yen there was also the nun Seng-mao, whose secular
surname was Wang and whose family was originally from P'eng-ch'eng
[in northeast China]. She kept a strict vegetarian diet and vigorously
cultivated asceticism. Whatever was given to her she bequeathed
to Bamboo Garden Convent.