樂邦文類 3.141

3.141

始（余）東歸，過所謂羅睺羅道場者，至起信堂，有比丘語（余）曰：「寺有勝事。子知之不？」（余）顧堂下四檜曰：「得非歲寒面目尚無恙乎？」比丘曰：「不然。」引（余）登懺摩之堂，發一函視之，即刺繡妙蓮華七軸也。（余）方合十指爪，歎未曾有。比丘曰：「此薛君之室、道人朱氏，法名如一之所作也。朱即欽成皇后淵聖中宮兩世之姪，自歸於薛，視世故如塵泥。年二十餘，即告其夫，清淨自適，道裝素服、潔齋如也。甞以黃絹命經生書是經，手以碧茸繡其上，線蹊鍼孔去來綿密無有間斷，如筆既試、如墨新乾，閱十年而後有成。復繡彌陀觀音，無異繪畫。自經首題，敬致八萬四千拜，一句一字凡唱禮者三。《法華》之文幾數萬言，三月而能皆誦。閱《華嚴》、《般若》、《楞嚴》、《圓覺》亦翻水千偈，餘經可知。甞鋟木為圖，勸人誦阿彌陀，擘窠婁書，滿十萬聲而止，所化之數僅二十萬人。道人則旦旦誦之、莫夜叩之，無一豪惰意。尤喜禪悅，結廬於墓，一室事佛、一室宴坐、一室書經，一婢供齋蔬與同甘苦。雖然丈夫，有所不能堪也。今年春盡，易故奩具為三日會，會道俗以萬計、飯千苾芻，為寶幢貯法華同念佛人姓名迎歸是寺，城內外歡動，傾士大夫之室莫不聳觀。十二月以微疾命醫，醫以丹砂進，道人竟不起。臨瞑目時，再起加趺。薛君曰：吾家無是法也。請就寢，後事即如儀。道人右脇而終，年三十有七，實紹熙四年十二月十一日。」（余）聞比丘語，為之慨然。比丘屬（余）識其事，為來世勸。敬書以贊之。贊曰：

When I first returned to the east, passing by the so-called Rāhula Bodhimaṇḍa, I arrived at the Hall of Arising Faith. A monk said to me, “The monastery has an extraordinary matter. Do you know of it?” I looked back at the four junipers below the hall and said, “Could it be that their winter appearance is still unharmed?” The monk said, “Not so.” He led me up to the Hall of Repentance and opened a box to show me: it was seven scrolls of the Wondrous Lotus Sutra embroidered by needle. Just as I joined the tips of my ten fingers and marveled at this unprecedented feat, the monk said: “This was made by the wife of Gentleman Xue, the woman of the Way Lady Zhu, whose Dharma name is Ruyi. Lady Zhu is the niece of both Empress Qincheng and the Central Palace Empress Yuansheng over two generations. Ever since she married into the Xue family, she viewed mundane affairs as dust and mire. When she was just over twenty years old, she told her husband that she wished to follow her own inclinations in pure quietude, wearing the plain robes of the Way and observing the purificatory fasts with purity. She once used yellow silk and commissioned a scripture scribe to write this sutra, and with her own hands embroidered upon it with azure floss; the paths of thread and needle holes went back and forth with fine precision without interruption, looking as though newly tested by brush and freshly dried in ink, being completed only after ten years. Furthermore, she embroidered Amitābha and Avalokiteśvara, no different from paintings. From the title at the beginning of the sutra, she reverently made eighty-four thousand prostrations; for each line and each character, she chanted and bowed three times in total. The text of the Lotus Sutra runs to several tens of thousands of words, yet she was able to recite it all within three months. When reading the Avataṃsaka, Prajñā, Śūraṅgama, and Perfect Enlightenment sūtras, she recited a thousand verses as smoothly as flowing water, and other sūtras may be known from this. She once carved woodblocks to make charts, exhorting people to recite ‘Amitābha’, writing them in large characters and stopping only when one hundred thousand recitations were reached; the number of those she transformed reached nearly two hundred thousand people. The woman of the Way recited it every morning and engaged in it every night, without the slightest indolence. She especially delighted in the joy of Chan, and built a hut near the tombs: one room for serving the Buddha, one room for tranquil sitting, and one room for writing sutras. A maidservant served her vegetarian food and shared her joys and hardships. Even a strong man might find this unbearable. At the end of spring this year, she exchanged her old trousseau items to hold a three-day gathering, convening monastics and laity by the tens of thousands, feeding a thousand bhikṣus, and placing the names of those who recited the buddha-name alongside the Lotus Sutra into a jeweled banner to welcome them back to this monastery. Inside and outside the city, people were moved with joy, and the households of scholar-officials emptied out to watch with reverence. In the twelfth month, having a slight illness, she summoned a physician; the physician administered cinnabar, and the woman of the Way ultimately did not recover. When she was about to close her eyes, she rose again to sit in the lotus posture. Gentleman Xue said, ‘Our family does not have such a practice. Please go to bed; the final affairs will be carried out according to the rites.’ The woman of the Way passed away resting on her right side at the age of thirty-seven, which was on the eleventh day of the twelfth month of the fourth year of the Shaoxi reign era.” Hearing the monk’s words, I was deeply moved. The monk entrusted me to record these matters to encourage future generations. I reverently write this in eulogy. The eulogy says: