I-lung
I-lung
遺竜 (n.d.) (PY Yilong; Jpn Iryo)
A master calligrapher in China, a story about whom appears in The Lotus Sutra and Its Traditions written in the eighth century by Seng-hsiang. Wu-lung, I-lung's father, was also an outstanding calligrapher. The father was a firm believer in Taoism and detested Buddhism. On his deathbed he forbade his son ever to transcribe any Buddhist scriptures, especially the Lotus Sutra. At the command of Ssu-ma, the lord of Ping-chou, however, I-lung was forced to write the sixty-four Chinese characters that comprise the titles of the eight volumes of the Lotus Sutra. That night he dreamed that the sixty-four characters he had written all turned into Buddhas and saved his father, Wu-lung, who had been suffering in hell for his slander of Buddhism.
