University of Virginia Library

58. Ching-yüan

[OMITTED]

The nun Ching-yüan (Pure Profundity) (436-506) of Bamboo
Garden Convent

Ching-yüan's secular surname was Shih, and her family originally was
from the Chü-lu region [in far north China].[60] When she was a child,
she had the wisdom of an adult, and at the age of five or six she used
to pile up sand to make little pagodas and carve wood to make little
images.[61] Burning incense and offering worship, the whole day was
not long enough for her. Whenever she heard people discussing anything,
she would relentlessly pursue the topic to grasp the essential
principles.

When she was twenty, Ching-yüan left secular life to become a nun.
Out of devotion to her parents she did not eat or sleep and drank only
water to keep her fast.[62] She went on like this, not acquiescing to
remonstrances, until seven days were over, after which she always
kept a vegetarian diet. Ching-yüan observed all the monastic precepts
most diligently, needing no exhortation or encouragement from others.
Her teachers and friends respected her; those far and near commended
her. The Ch'i heir apparent Wen-hui (458-493) honored her
greatly,[63] giving her the four necessities of a monastic life, while messages
and envoys came thick and fast.[64]

Ching-yüan died in the fifth year of the t'ien-chien reign period
(506) at the age of seventy-one.

[61]

These activities carried out by the little girl are described in the Flower
of the Law Scripture, which says that, even if a child piles up sand to make little
Buddhist pagodas, that child has already attained to the Buddhist path, or

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if such a one carves or paints images of the Buddha, thereby accumulating
merit, he has attained the Buddhist path. See Flower of the Law Scripture
(Miao fa lien hua ching), pp. 8.c.23-25, 9.a.5-8.